Sara Dixon meets an adventurer circumnavigating the world’s oceans in a boat so old it’s considered a curiosity

The December seas around Phuket were stuffed with yachts – their sails bursting with color. They had come to com­pete in the King’s Cup Regetta, one of Thailand’s premier yacht races.

Elsewhere, dotted down the coast to Krabi and towards Malaysia tourists flush enough to rent a yacht are out here to cruise the crystal blue seas. Some are anchored off beach resorts dominated by towering limestone cliffs.

They share sea space with the hornet drone of long-tail boats taking land-lubbers on day trips to the best snorkeling points, while holiday makers lazily canoe around in rented sea kayaks for the day. The yachts exude a sense of romance and wealth: one could ­easily imagine spotting the likes of P Diddy and J Lo cavorting with the glamorous while sipping & T’s and watching the sun evaporate into tangerine hues.

But if you look carefully amongst the tourists taking their two week breaks on the rented yacht you still might be able to find a tiny, 35-foot boat. A Pearson Alberg Sloop to be exact.

From the shore it looks like any other tourist yacht, its main sail tucked away under a blue canopy; the small rectangle of bright blue shouts out over the waves.

But this boat has nothing to do with Gin and Tonics or lounging or J Lo and her entourage of gluttony.

Well, you could wash down some glutinous rice with a cocktail or two if you didn’t mind sitting in between the plastic jerry cans, covered in old t-shirts, full of water and fuel lashed to the sides of the boat. Or alternatively you could lie on the spare sails stored on top of the Pelican. Slightly battered with its tiny cabin not quite big enough to encapsulate a good swing on a cat – this little boat is all about adventure and freedom.

And if you squinted and really strained your eyes from the shore you might be able to make out a small, boxy looking dingy bobbing about behind the boat, all square lines and light wood. The little wooden dingy has come a long way. It has come all the way from California and has taken some time to get to the Andaman Sea – two years and 15,000 miles.

“I made that dingy myself from a plan on the internet. It folds in two so I can store it on the boat. It needs a bit of repair. I think I’ll do that while I’m in Thailand,” said Jonas Collins, the boat’s skipper, in his soft, slow Ameri­can drawl.

His tanned face is weather worn, like he is used to squint­ing into the sun. He’s wearing surf-dude Billabong swim-shorts but he’s not really a surf-dude, he’s far too focused for that. The fiber glass waterproofing on his boat is fray­ing around the edges though. Big bolts, screwing the two halves together, are threatening to come loose. It’s more Heath Robinson on the Ocean than Robinson Crusoe – but it floats.

Jonas and his dingy still have quite a long a way to go before they sail back under the Golden Gate Bridge, three fifths of the world’s oceans, and maybe two or three years more at sea so the repairs will have to be done somewhere along the way.

If he makes it back to San Francisco Jonas will be one of the handful of people every year who successfully circumnavigate the world alone, some passing through Thailand on their way round. They don’t appear on televi­sion or news bulletins. They slip very quietly back into to the life they left behind, coming full circle. The son of hippy parents and a child of 1970s and 80s San Francisco Jonas gave up pursuing the American dream -which for some is nothing more than a thing “vexed to a nightmare by a rocking cradle” -to sail the seas alone.

There’s a special kind of self reliance, and no doubt a particular kind of aloneness, that has to come with single-handed sailing. To get here Jonas spent 32 days by himself, crossing the Pacific Ocean – heading out west from Puerto Angel in Mexico to get to the Far East.

Thirty-two days alone. Sleeping in 11 minute stints so he could check the boat wasn’t sinking or about to collide with a tanker. Apart from the lack of sleep, hardship, ultimate self reliance, able dangers it would be the fear of no which would put most of us off.

It’s not just the meeting yourself in the challenge  of  the  hardship  but meeting  yourself in the nothingness that surrounds you. It’s enough to drive a person mad. But Jonas is pragmatic about these things, he’s under no illusions about what going to sea means.

“People who dream about sailing are like people who dream about escaping to the country and  starting a farm. It’s really about hard work and it can be boring,” he said.

“You have to know how to deal with boredom.

“I play DVDs of memories in my head. I think a lot.”

Then, just when the boredom reaches it’s zenith and you can take no more of yourself it’s Land Ho! And the islands read like a role call of exotica. Bora Bora, Hiva Oa, French Polynesia, Tahiti, Tonga, and the tiny island Tikopia home to 1,200 inhabitants and ruled over by three chiefs.

I mean, how many people can say they’ve been sniffed by three tribal chiefs on a tiny volcanic island after presenting the chiefs with useful gifts of sandpaper so you can anchor your yacht there.

But to get there, to be able to crawl belly down into a hut to greet the chiefs, Jonas had to face hanging of the side of his boat in the middle of a sea squall, trying to fix the auto-pilot with a tiny metal spare-part. The only tiny metal spare part he had on board. If he had failed, wet fingers causing  it to plop into the ocean, he would have faced the horror of days of hand steering the Pelican with no one to share the arduous, boring, yet deathly important task with.

So, at the risk of sounding cornier than an advert for a breakfast cereal it’s got to be all about the journey.

“I don’t care about Ellen MacArthur and  record breaking attempts. I don’t care about how  fast the boat goes,” said Jonas.

“Some people cruise for 15 years, that’s the way to sail. I’m doing it quickly in four or five.”

The  English buccaneer Sir Francis Drake was one of the first people to officially sail around the world – and get back in one piece. His boat was also  called the Pelican before it was renamed the Golden Hind.

He was following the sails of Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan who believed he would reach the Far East by sailing west. He was right. And while some of his crew made  it back  to where  they started  from, Magellan died on route.

It’s a dangerous business this sailing around the world – at times feasting on sawdust,  leather strips, rats and maggoty sea biscuits. No surprise only 18 of the 237 men who set out on the five ships in 1519 managed to return to Spain in 1522.

Today sailing around the world is slightly more sophisticated. There is GPS positioning but the fundamentals of canvas, wind and compass remain the same. Jonas is doing his journey on a slim budget in a boat so old it’s considered a curiosity.

“Since  the 1960s  there’s been a  lot of new boats, this one is considered an antique in the yard. It was made in 1965. I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘This was my father’s dream boat.’”

In the 1920s and 1930s sailing was for the rich. But in the 1960s they started building cheaper boats out of fiber glass. Then a lot of hippy types took to sailing.

“In my early twenties I had a friend. He was 19-years-old and he knew the secret of sailing.

“It does not take a huge body of experience to do this and you don’t need $100,000 a year or a huge amount of experience and you can go to uninhab­ited islands.

“A car is the least liberating vehicle, after about 100 miles you have to stop and find gas, but in sailing you are free. The wind is free. You just hit a lot of wind and float off. This is the way to go. Sailing is elegant.”

That said, Jonas has had to repair everything that breaks on the boat using instruction manuals – so experience in fixing things might come in handy along with an appreciation of elegance. The boat is so old it cost $27,500 – less than a mid-range luxury car in Europe or the States.

Bought off a couple who gave up on their dream of sailing, Jonas spent an extra $18,000 on equipment and repairs along the way and with $500 living expenses a month (no accommodation needed), it is really the world on a shoestring. The chance to make the ultimate getaway.

And while Jonas is happy to admit there’s a certain amount, well quite a lot, of kudos attached to single-handedly sailing around the world there is more motivation to the endeavor than that.

“The bragging rights of the circumnavigation seems to matter less and less over time, really, it’s the opportunity to really get away, getting away as in experiencing something truly different from the nine-to-five grind back home,” he explained.

“I needed to find out if there are people doing more than just the pursuit of suburban middle class respectability and I think we all have the fantasy of ‘sailing away’. Part of the fantasy includes visions of tropical Islands with people living a paradise like existence.

“But the truly different and remote places are disappearing quickly so some of my decision to go was based on a go now philosophy.”

And finally, there’s the powerful lure of adventure.

“The sea still offers opportunity for adventure, unlike a lot of other modes of travel,” he said. “Just think of how commercialized Lonely Planet backpack­ing has become.”

Tied to the winds Jonas will spend two months resting up on the shores of Thailand before heading west to India and Madagascar, finally reaching the Atlantic via the Med.

“I took three to four months break in New Zealand waiting for the hurricane season. It’s one of the main determining factors – I have to time everything with the hurricane seasons.

“I’m going to stay in Thailand for the next month. I really have to eat and rest up here before the next leg of the journey. Eating and resting are really important,” he said filling up on his third lunch of the day.

And while it’s a relatively cheap way to see parts of the world, very few peo­ple will sever themselves from the chains of so called security. The price for leaving it all behind and taking to the high seas is constant vigilance and the ever present threat of dying alone at sea with only a ‘ditch bag’ for company
- but hell, we could all get hit by a bus tomorrow.