IT
HAS BEEN YEARS since the hard-cover version of my book, Small Boat to Freedom, was published, and more than a year since
the paperback version came out. But
during that time people have occasionally asked for more details about me, the
man behind the book. I have ignored those requests because I am not much of a
glory seeker; but one of my publishers recently asked for a fuller resume from
me, and I thought I might as well use it here as well, for no better reason than
to save me from having to write a new column when I need to be cheering on the
Seattle Seahawks on television. (Yeah, they’re beating the Rams into the dust.)
So
let me tell you that there was a time when I had it all: a loving family, a
successful career as a newspaper columnist and a comfortable home in Durban,
one of South Africa’s loveliest cities. But a repressive apartheid regime and a
clampdown by government forces on people’s freedom of expression made me decide
to leave the country I loved.
With
my wife and seventeen-year-old son, I gave up my life of contentment and
security and set sail on a long voyage to America aboard my 31-foot sloop, Freelance. Everything I owned was on
that little sloop as we battled our way around the aptly named Cape of Storms
and wondered how we were going to smuggle our meager supply of gold Krugerrands
out of South Africa and into the United States. And then, when we were stopped
in mid-ocean by a U.S. warship, there was the question of my expired visa . . .
this is the book that explains it all.
To
save myself the shame of praising my own wares, I repeat here a review of Small Boat written by Duncan Spencer and
published in the Washington Times:
“NOT SINCE Robert Manry's
"Tinkerbelle" in 1965 has there been a true sailing story as fresh
and authentic as John Vigor's Small Boat
to Freedom. A middle-aged man can no
longer abide life in South Africa, so he quietly prepares and embarks in secret
with wife and son on a tiny sailboat for a new life in America.
“Manry wrote his
bestseller after he threw over his safe newspaper job in Ohio and fitted up a
tiny sloop vowing to sail the Atlantic. He made it to huge acclaim, carrying
the banner for millions of men tied to desks and to tedium while life slips
past.
“Mr. Vigor is the worthy
successor to that great story. The man is a newspaper reporter and
photographer, a sailor and writer of gritty resource, not one of the nabobs of
the media. It is his gift to see the world always in the direct bright light of
reality, not fogged with egotism or anchored to rank; though an intellectual,
he manages to sail, write and work almost completely within the life of
physical action. It is no surprise to read that Mr. Vigor's other passion,
besides sailing, is bricklaying.
“Which is the secret of
his escape and his success in the remarkable small boat voyage he undertook in
1987. Why did he wait so long to write of it?
“Because, he says, the
terrorist attack on the United States on September 11 spurred him into action
lest Americans "give away their hard won individual rights and freedoms
almost as easily as they distribute candy at Halloween."
“Mr. Vigor reveals the
strange burdens borne by the white South African, despised and feared by black
Africans, simply despised by Europeans (and most Americans), and thwarted in
the normal transactions of life by numerous sanctions put in place to
"punish" the apartheid regime of his first adopted land.
“No matter that he wrote
for an anti-apartheid paper; that he foresaw the long and difficult years ahead
for white South Africans as the races adapted to a profound shift of power. As
he writes, "Whites who left South Africa at that time were treated almost
as traitors." Those who stay must accustom themselves to a life of
watchfulness and fear; the years of subjugation had made enemies of everyone
with a white skin.
“Restrictions led him to
sneak out of the country with his meager life savings in gold Krugerrands
hidden aboard his tiny 31-foot sailboat. "It was my idea to go in our own
boat. I reasoned that when we got to America, we'd have a home to live in and a
mobile base from which to start looking for work," he writes.
“While other whites felt
trapped in South Africa, Mr. Vigor had less reason to. He was English, one of
the thousands who immigrated to South Africa for opportunities. His wife June
was an American born far from the sea in Utah. His son Kevin was about to
graduate from high school. And neither, though practiced sailors, had ever
spent a night offshore in a small boat. Mr. Vigor builds his story like he
builds a brick wall, methodically, neatly, logically. There are no literary
frills, just straight rather humble reporting.
“Step by step he
prepares; selling his house, finding a boat, accumulating the gold coins to
thwart currency export restrictions, readying his wife and son. The voyage
itself is what you would expect from an extremely competent and cautious seaman
with his family as crew. The sea is immense; it is boring and terrifying. Like
many small boat voyages, Vigor's is a triumph over storm, frustration and
adversity, a severe test of a marriage and a study of father-son relationships
in extreme circumstances.
“In this age when some
people part saying, ‘be safe,’ Mr. Vigor's book shows what people with skill,
energy and expertise can still accomplish in the world with little money and no
help. Mr. Vigor and his crew and the little yacht Freelance make it across the South Atlantic - taking over three
months - to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The family thrives
modestly in America after moving to the Northwest, he as a freelance writer,
she as a copy editor. Mr. Vigor never sought publicity, and never got any. This
slim book is his story told at last. June Vigor says she never wishes to embark
on an ocean voyage again - but the couple still sail together.”
Today’s
Thought
We
are all sailors on the spaceship Earth.
— Frank Braynard, Newsweek, 4 Jul 76
Tailpiece
“Any Royalty in your family?”
“No, but I had an uncle who was a Peer.”
“Really? I had an uncle with bladder
trouble, too.
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a
new Mainly about Boats column.)
