“When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.”

The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.

On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.

The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!

I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn’t likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks.

I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.

One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.

In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.

If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.

Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.

Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.

Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.

I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.

It was amazing to see all the support that he got from around the world and to see how everyone worked together to help make his dream reality. Watching him do this really made me believe that I could too.

Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.

Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.