The Dove

[jim454]

Any of you read the book "The Dove"?

It's a book about Robin Lee Grahams, when he was just 16 he sailed around the world. Oak turned me on to it, suppose to be a great read.

Made a movie of it as well, anyone seen it?

Can't wait to get it!

 

[Chum]

He wasn't 16 when he returned - went thru two sloops and caught a wife while gone. Three years ago I was shopping for a bluewater ketch or a single-handable cutter-rigged sloop, available anywhere in the world via the internet. I found a small 24-footer on the dry in Tobago, neglected, abandoned, and rotting. Pictures and a small history was posted with her, she was the Dove 2. My heart broke and I wanted to contact Robin but he'd been known to cut-off society from his Montana farm so I respected that.

I believe a society has been established to refurbish and honor the Dove, not certain. It was just sad to see her all blistered and forgotten. Robin was a unique kid and one hell of a mentor wether he was aware of it or not.



Never saw the movie and didn't know there was a book...read National Geographic magazine while growing up and still.

 

[ChuckR]

I have "The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone" written by Graham, 1973. It's "A Golden Book". Lots of color pictures from the trip.

 

[ChuckR]

One thing ironic about his arrival in LA after 5 years sailing around the world---

He couldn't drive a car! Left at 16, returned at 21, survived all the sea could throw at him, but had never driven.

 

[Chum]

Been searching for the Dove again.

Can't find her position anymore after Hurricane Marilyn hit in 1995. I guess that ownership in websites dwindles after people's minds move on. History changes then, we start all over doing something someone else already has. There's a kid who's being promoted now as the youngest to set out on a circumnavigation. At 16, his sponsors claim no one's done this ever...asking for donations. He's schooled on the GPS and interfaced with an autopilot.

Jesus would drive an Escalade if he were alive today...they say.

 

[ChuckR]

And of course he has an epirb.

Tania Aebi was quite the teen sailor, too. I think she was 18. Like Tania, maybe Robin's trip didn't "count". He may have been accompanied for a few miles by his girlfriend. Although in reading the book, it doesn't sound like it. The original Dove (Luder 24) was literally coming apart from a storm off Madagascar when he switched boats. National Geographic got him Dove 2 so he could finish the trip.

 

[Sciuropterus]

I saw the movie when it first came out with my family, it had to have been over 30 years ago.

 

[jim454]

Worth the price of admission?

 

[Sciuropterus]

I really don't remember, I was probably about 7 or 8. I enjoyed it, but I recall that while watching the movie, I decided a life at sea was probably not for me.