I am delighted to share a wonderful account about Dodge Morgan, brought to you by Bruce Hansen. Bruce is the author of a new sailing blog, A Voice Cries Out In The Wilderness. This blog will be well-worth following. As you can tell, Bruce is a fine storyteller. Dodge Morgan was truly larger than life: Jet pilot, journalist in Alaska; newspaper publisher; inventor; entrepreneur and above all a Great Sailor. He passed last September. Here's his story.
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His most frightening moment came when he pulled the next-to-last bottle of beer from the bilge. Dodge Morgan circumnavigated alone 27,000 miles around the world on his sailboat American Promise in 1986 after five months at sea in a record-shattering time of 150 days, 1 hour and 6 minutes, cleaving the previous record in half.
The captain white-knuckled it as Promise righted herself after getting flattened by exploding wind at least 11 times. Morgan survived getting a slammed by a whale, and relentless torture by colossal seas of a tropical cyclone. He got becalmed, sometimes for up to six days.
He fell overboard into 45-degree water: “I’m the luckiest sonofabitch I know.”
The enthusiastic energetic self-proclaimed contrarian Morgan always colored outside the lines. His charismatic, bawdy, irreverent and outspoken personality was larger than Magellan’s boat. Some considered him a loner, or worse, a curmudgeon. Nay, say I. He had grace, didn’t brag about his accomplishments and was outraged by injustice. For example, Morgan noted the phrase “American Promise’ relates to those things guaranteed in the United States Constitution, including the welfare of the citizenry; the government promises benefits to everyone. Curmudgeon? Get outta my way. Hungry minds crawled over each other to participate in his inspirational discussions. The man had style.
Dodge Morgan started his Controlonics Company in a garage by himself in 1971 with $10,000 and a $20,000 loan. The guerrilla manufacturer sold the first Whistler fuzz-buster radar detectors. Twelve years later, he sold the business for $32 million and retired at the age of 50. On the way out Dodge rewarded members of his staff with gratitude gifts of money, with some receiving as much as $1 million. $1.5 million was set aside from the sale to commission the American Promise.
Morgan’s custom-made American Promise 60-footwhite and blue monohull single-masted sloop is a 30-ton78,000 pounds displacement high-tech, state-of-the-art, $1.5 million sailboat. 1974 America’s Cup Winner Ted hood designed her for sturdiness rather than speed.
Morgan planned on not making repairs at sea; he brought two of everything. Promise was more well equipped than the largest commercial airplane. Watertight compartments and submarine-like door made her almost unsinkable.
Six film cameras were aboard; three above deck and three down below. Morgan hired Producer Christopher G. Knight and his New Film Company of Boston, Massachusetts to make a film about the journey. One in each set was programmed to come on twice a day during daylight hours and run for 30 seconds, allowing Morgan to film himself.
The forceful 1,000 square foot cutter sail was deployed above and a backup sail was stored below. There were two rudders, two diesel generators, with yet another generator hanging from the transom powered by the movement of the seas. 3,000 pounds of batteries, four battery chargers, 800 gallons of diesel fuel, two machines to convert salt water into fresh water. Hydraulic steering, two steering stations, four electronic autopilots, a wind vane pilot, two satellite navigational systems and an excess of redundant electronic gizmos.
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