John Manfield Ridgway MBE (born 8 July 1938) is a British yachtsman and rower. [1] [2]
Ridgway was educated at the Pangbourne Nautical College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In 1966, whilst a Captain in the Parachute Regiment, Ridgway, together with Chay Blyth, rowed across the North Atlantic in a 20 ft open dory called English Rose III. They successfully completed this in 92 days as second team after George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen in 1896. [3] In 1967 Ridgway and Blyth were awarded the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service for their trip which had until then been considered impossible. [4]
In 1964 he married Marie Christine d’Albiac, daughter of Air Marshal Sir John d'Albiac.
Ridgway entered the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 with his sloop English Rose IV, in an attempt to become the first person to sail single-handed non-stop around the world, but retired from the race in Recife, Brazil. [5] In 1969 he founded the John Ridgway School of Adventure at Ardmore, Sutherland, Scotland. It is now managed by his daughter, Rebecca. [6] In 1977–78 Ridgway raced his yacht Debenhams in the Whitbread Round the World Race. [7]
In 1983/4 Ridgway and Andy Briggs sailed the school's 57-foot ketch, English Rose VI, in a non-stop passage round the world, setting (what was then) a 203-day record. In 1987 he awarded the Mungo Park Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In 2003/4 Ridgway circumnavigated the globe in English Rose VI, in a campaign under the flag of the UN Environment Programme to highlight the plight of albatrosses. [8]
Ridgway served with the Special Air Service (SAS). [9]
Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE was a British businessman, pioneering aviator and solo sailor.
Donald Charles Alfred Crowhurst was a British businessman and amateur sailor who disappeared while competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968–69. Soon after starting the race his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, began taking on water. Crowhurst secretly abandoned the race while reporting false positions in an attempt to appear to complete a circumnavigation without actually doing so. His ship's logbooks, found after his disappearance, suggest that stress and associated psychological deterioration may have led to his suicide.
Sir Charles Blyth, known as Chay Blyth, is a Scottish yachtsman and rower. He was the first person to sail single-handed non-stop westwards around the world (1971), on a 59-foot boat called British Steel.
Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won in 1994 the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also given the ISAF World Sailor of the Year Awards. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race.
Alan John Villiers, DSC was a writer, adventurer, photographer and mariner.
Dame Naomi Christine James, DBE is the first woman to have sailed single-handed around the world via Cape Horn, the second woman to have ever sailed solo around the world. She departed Dartmouth, Devon on 9 September 1977 and finished her voyage around the globe on 8 June 1978 after 272 days, thus improving Sir Francis Chichester's solo round-the-world sailing record by two days.
Ocean rowing is the sport of rowing across oceans. Some ocean rowing boats can hold as many as fourteen rowers; however, the most common ocean rowboats are designed for singles, doubles, and fours.
The sport and practice of single-handed sailing or solo sailing is sailing with only one crewmember. The term usually refers to ocean and long-distance sailing and is used in competitive sailing and among cruisers.
The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was a non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race, held in 1968–1969, and was the first non-stop round-the-world yacht race. The race was controversial due to the failure of most competitors to finish the race and because of the apparent suicide of one entrant, Donald Crowhurst; however, it ultimately led to the founding of the BOC Challenge and Vendée Globe round-the-world races, both of which continue to be successful and popular.
Jim Shekhdar is a British ocean rower and was the first person to complete a solo unassisted non-stop crossing of the Pacific Ocean.
The clipper route was derived from the Brouwer Route and was sailed by clipper ships between Europe and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The route, devised by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, reduced the time of a voyage between The Netherlands and Java, in the Dutch East Indies, from almost 12 months to about six months, compared to the previous Arab and Portuguese monsoon route.
Nigel Tetley was a British sailor who was the first person to circumnavigate the world solo in a trimaran.
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America, Cape Horn marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet.
Denise "Dee" Caffari MBE is a British sailor, and in 2006 became the first woman to sail single-handedly and non-stop around the world "the wrong way"; westward against the prevailing winds and currents. In February 2009, Caffari completed the Vendée Globe race and set a new record to become the first woman to sail solo, non-stop, around the world in both directions.
Peter Bird was a British ocean rower who, in 1983, became the first person ever to row non-stop and solo across the Pacific from east to west when he completed his journey from America to Australia.
The first around the world sailing record for circumnavigation of the world can be attributed to the surviving crew of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, including the last captain Juan Sebastián Elcano who completed their journey in 1522.
Dodge David Morgan was an American sailor, businessman, publisher and "self-proclaimed contrarian." He flew fighter jets in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, worked as a newspaper reporter in Alaska, and became a millionaire by operating Controlonics, a company that manufactured Whistler radar detectors from 1971 to 1983. He gained fame in 1986 as the first American to sail solo around the world with no stops; Dodge was the third person to ever accomplish the feat and set eleven world records during his voyage including the fastest ever solo, non-stop circumnavigation. He also set a world record for eastward sailing when he completed his journey in 150 days, cutting the prior record of 292 days nearly in half. He spent his later years living on a 30-acre island that he purchased in 1998 in Maine's Quahog Harbor.
The Mercy is a 2017 British biographical drama film, directed by James Marsh and written by Scott Z. Burns. It is based on the true story of the disastrous attempt by the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst to complete the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 and his subsequent attempts to cover up his failure. The film stars Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis and Ken Stott. It is one of the last films scored by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
The Teignmouth Electron was a 41-foot trimaran sailing vessel designed explicitly for Donald Crowhurst’s ill-fated attempt to sail around the world in the Golden Globe Race of 1968. She became a ghost ship after Crowhurst reported false positions and presumably died by suicide at sea. The journey was meticulously catalogued in Crowhurst's found logbooks, which also documented the captain's thoughts, philosophy, and eventual mental breakdown. Sold after its recovery, the vessel passed through several subsequent hands, being re-purposed and re-fitted as a cruise vessel and later, dive boat, before eventually being beached at Cayman Brac, a small Caribbean island, where its remains were still visible as of 2019 but in an advanced state of decay.