The banks of the Mississippi River, which were ravaged in recent years by the worst flooding in modern-day history, are part of the stage for a true-life adventure of four young men on a sailing journey related in A Year In A Yawl. But turn back the clock over a century. This was a voyage which began in 1898. A Year In A Yawl was first published in 1901. This tale was related in the book by Russell Doubleday from the log of Captain Kenneth Ransom. The book has been reprinted and is being distributed by Cruising Guide Publications.
It is the story of four adventurers setting out on a 7,000-mile voyage aboard a 30-foot home-built yawl, the Gazelle . Their cruise leads from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, south to the Gulf of Mexico rounding Florida, north along the Eastern Seaboard and then finally home to the Great Lakes.
Amazingly, it was a voyage accomplished in an engineless boat. Crew members towed the craft through locks with ropes over their shoulders.
The crew was armed for hunting and actually shot ducks from their sailboat. Turtles were killed as a food supply on the beach below the lighthouse on Gasparilla Island on Florida's west coast. They were lost on Captive Island, today's Florida tourist mecca known as Captiva Island.
A Year In A Yawl is a window into adventures of a bygone era.
