Sailing solo, nonstop, unassisted by motor power for 41,900 kilometers to circumnavigate the globe: That is the feat achieved by Kim Seung-jin.
Returning to Waemokhang Harbor in South Chungcheong Province on May 16 after 209 days on the high seas, Kim became the sixth person in the world and the first Korean ever to have successfully completed the challenge.
I met up with Kim, 53, at his trailer base camp at Waemokhang Harbor, a small village known for its beautiful sunrise, where his sailboat the Arapani is anchored about 500-600 meters from the shore.
Kim Seung-jin poses aboard the Arapani, anchored off Waemokhang Harbor in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, on June 10. (Ahn Hoon/The Korea Herald)
“I am probably the only one to have set off in a non-marina setting,” Kim says as he offers a handshake. I am struck by the firmness of the grasp and then notice the calloused and leathery hand of the man who has weathered Antarctic storms and the blinding sun of the Equator.
Sailing on the southern trade winds, Kim traveled eastward, traversing the Pacific Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, covering a total distance of 22,600 nautical miles. Kim became Korea’s first “Cape Horner,” a title given to those who travel around the treacherous Cape Horn, often called the Everest of the Seas, on Feb. 2.
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