Preparing to Haul North » DSCF4037

Another was the camera shy Australian, Jim Mackey, who set out to singlehand the globe non stop four years ago. Off Cape Town he came on deck one morning to find his wind vane paddle missing. Then he hit a submerged object. So that was the end of “non stop” ideals. Any hard data we have on tsunami debris drift we owe to Jim, for he was the guy who, last December, sailed his small boat from Honolulu to Midway placing drift buoys along the way for the University of Hawaii. He will also depart for the North Pacific, then later this year, it’s south to Cape Horn and home. This photo of his boat, THIS BOAT, is the closest I could come to a photo of Jim. But he has a grand sense of humor. For example, “What was I thinking calling my boat THIS BOAT. Can you imagine me on the radio to the coast guard in an emergency? Me: ‘May day, May day, THIS BOAT.’ Coast Guard: ‘Which boat?'”