Bernard Gilboy

Inspired by Johnson, Bernard Gilboy, a professional seaman, had an 18‘ schooner built in San Francisco specifically for his voyage at a cost of $400. He considered this the smallest boat capable of holding provisions for the five months he thought his non-stop passage would take. Her length of 18‘ and beam of 6‘ . Gilboy somehow squeezed into his craft: “14 ten-gallon casks, filled with water; one hundred and sixty-five pounds of bread, in fifteen pound tin cans (air tight) two dozen roast beef in two and-a-half pound cans; two dozen roast chicken, in one pound cans; two dozen roast salmon, in one pound cans; two dozen one pound cans of boneless pigs-feet; two dozen cans of peaches; two dozen cans of milk; one box containing twenty-five pounds of cube sugar; one gross of matches, packed in a half dozen glass jars; one half gallon of alcohol, in a druggist’s glass jar; four cans of nut oil–two and a half gallons in a can; five gallon can of kerosene oil; one bar of Castille soap; three pounds of nails; one wooden pump; 12ft. of half-inch hose, which I used as a syphon to fill the kegs, or get water out of them, one grains (a fish spear), a hammer, and hatchet; paper, copper tacks; kerosene oil stove; alcohol pocket stove; two lamps; one pound of paraffin candles; two compasses, barometer and sextant; patent taff-rail log; double barreled shot gun, powder and shot, revolver and cartridges; clock and watch; nine knives, anchor and sea drag, with about forty fathoms of 1½” rope; some spare marline amber-line, and marline-spike; navigation books, sheet chart of the South Pacific; an American flag; clothing necessary for the voyage; two pounds of lard; 1 pair of 12’ oars; and an umbrella, which I found very handy when the wind was light and the sun strong.”

He needlessly notes that the boat was deep in the water. And I note one bar of soap for five months. After obtaining his customs clearance for what was listed as “a voyage of pleasure,” Bernard Gilboy called, “All aboard for Australia,” and shoved off. He made very good time his first week, covering 510 miles, particularly considering that he stopped to sleep, either heaving to or letting the small schooner swing to the sea anchor drogue. However progress came to a stop when he reached 9º North, and he made only 237 miles in the next 29 days. Finally at 5º North, he started moving again.

In describing conditions Gilboy often uses charming expressions with which I was not familiar, such as “baffling wind” and “mizzling rain.” Ninety days out of San Francisco he was near Tahiti. Although San Francisco is five hundred miles north of San Diego, in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE I was within six miles of Tahiti in 39 sailing days. I was, of course, not carrying provisions for five months. Disaster struck with the passing of a single wave which capsized the PACIFIC south of Fiji on December 12, his 116th at sea, only a few hundred miles southeast of where another single wave flipped CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE ninety-eight years later. Gilboy lost a mast, the rudder, his sextant and compass, and almost all of his provisions.

Steering with an oar until he made a seamanlike substitute rudder and with the jury rig seen in the lead photograph, he struggled on, starving, until on January 29, he was seen and picked up, boat and all, by a passing schooner. At the time he was two hundred miles off the Australian Queensland coast.
Gilboy’s almost successful attempt to make the first solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean surely ranks among the greatest almost unknown voyages. When late in life, Alfred Johnson was asked why he had sailed across the Atlantic alone, he replied, “I made that trip because I was a damned fool, just as they said I was.”

Download: Bernard Gilboy's adventure book "Voyage of pleasure"

In the March 24, 1883, issue of the SAN FRANCISCO DAILY ALTA CALIFORNIA newspaper appeared: “The dory “Pacific” is reported as arrived safely at Australia. Her only occupant gives a thrilling account of his perilous trip. He arrived, as above, and the fools are not all dead yet.” To which I offer the very last words in STORM PASSAGE: The fool smiles and sails on.