She sailed ’round the world, and found herself
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 29, 2007
Donna Lange, right, is met by old friend Jessamy Barnes at her welcome ceremony yesterday at the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol.
The Providence Journal / John Freidah
BRISTOL — Over 17 months and across 31,000 nautical miles, Donna Lange sailed the world in search of something. Peace. Understanding. It’s hard for her to describe what she was looking for.
Whatever it may be, she found it in the midst of a storm.
A fierce northeaster — the same one that slammed into New England two weeks ago — struck 300 miles west of Bermuda during the final leg of Lange’s solo circumnavigation of the globe. She was on her way from the British Virgin Islands to Bristol, returning to the port she sailed from in 2005 when she began her unlikely journey.
Early one morning, with rain pelting down and 55-knot winds gusting around her, a 40-foot wave broke over her small sailboat, Inspired Insanity, tipping it onto one side. The 28-foot boat was submerged and could have capsized, but in that perilous position Lange didn’t feel any fear.
“When I was in those conditions, I was completely at peace,” she says. “Those issues of life and death, I’d settled them.”
The boat righted itself, but the automatic steering system was severely damaged. A sea anchor that was stabilizing the boat had also snapped off in the surge. Lange decided to turn away from the tempest.
For the next 36 hours, she manually steered the boat through churning seas to safety in Bermuda. By the time she arrived, after four days in the storm, she could barely move her sore and stiffened arms.
“That storm was meant to happen,” she says, her weather-beaten face crinkling into a smile. “It finally revealed to me that I was a damn good sailor.”
Lange spoke Friday afternoon in the Topside Lounge, a hangout for fishermen and sailors overlooking Bristol Harbor. She flew into Rhode Island earlier in the week to celebrate the successful completion of her trip.
Although she has yet to bring her boat back to Bristol, she has technically finished her journey. In 2005, on her way to Bristol to begin the circumnavigation, she sailed from Tortolla in the British Virgin Islands to Rhode Island.
She is the 257th person to sail around the world alone and the 46th American, according to Ted Jones, chairman of the Joshua Slocum Society, a group named after the first person to complete a circumnavigation.
On Wednesday, the state House of Representatives proclaimed April 25 “Donna Lange Day.” Yesterday, a ceremony was held in her honor at the Herreshoff Marine Museum, in Bristol. Pat Henry, one of the few women to precede Lange on a solo circumnavigation, was also there.
Town Councilman Halsey C. Herreshoff, whose family built America’s Cup winners at the turn of the last century, described Lange’s trip as a mixture of “joy, excitement, boredom, pleasure and a certain amount of terror.”
“I think our star, Donna, was in some peril,” he said, addressing an audience of about 100 people. “Yet with her great spirit and sailing ability, she came through.”
Lange is not from Rhode Island. Her only connection to the state is through her father, a native of Burrillville. She remembers as a child visiting Galilee and eating fried clams by the water.
She lived most of her life in upstate New York, working as a nurse and raising a family. She is 46 years old, a mother of four and a grandmother of two.
Her life changed in 1998. Her 20-year marriage ended. And one night, on the way home from work, she accidentally hit a truck, which careened into a sport utility vehicle carrying five people. All five were killed.
Lange survived, but the accident scarred her. She says she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and struggled to move on.
She saw an ad for a chef on a Tall Ship in Baltimore, Md., and left New York in search of answers. She fell in love with the sea and learned how to sail.
“I had this vision of sailing around the world, and it just stuck,” she says.
She bought Inspired Insanity in 2000 for $18,000, all the money she had. The boat is a Southern Cross that was built in Bristol in 1982 by the C.E. Ryder Corp. It’s a sturdy boat but considered small for a circumnavigation.
“The 28-foot Southern Cross was not built to do what I did,” Lange, a petite 5-foot-2, says. “But I needed a boat that was my size, one that I could handle.”
In 2002, she sailed around the Atlantic Ocean, from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Ireland and back. That trip, though difficult, gave her the confidence to attempt a voyage around the world.
On a previous stop in Bristol, she had fallen in love with the town and its seafaring tradition. She returned to Bristol to refurbish her boat and stock up for the five-and-a-half month trip that would constitute the first leg of her journey.
“I chose to leave from Bristol because you’ve been family to me,” she said at the event yesterday.
She sailed from Bristol on Nov. 11, 2005. The voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, was tougher than she expected. The winds were pushing her back, and the seas were rough. She considered turning around.
“I was hit by gale after gale after gale,” she says. “I was beaten down.”
But she persevered, and after 168 days at sea, she sailed into Auckland, New Zealand.
After staying there for much of the rest of 2006, she left last November to cross the South Pacific. The trip across the ocean and around Cape Horn, the southernmost point in South America, took 48 days. She rested in Argentina before continuing north.
All told, she spent 293 days at sea, living on granola, canned fish, canned soup and crackers. She made only three stops along the way.
Lange says the journey was about more than piling up miles and persevering through seemingly endless days.
“I wanted answers,” she says. “But I wanted to know it right. I didn’t want people to tell me. So I went to the sea. And she’s been extremely faithful.”
Two of Lange’s daughters who were at the ceremony in Bristol said their mother has changed during her journey.
“She was pining away for something before,” Kristy Brill, 25, said.
“I think now she has found peace in herself,” said Ptarmigan Etman, 26.
Although Lange is a legal resident of the British Virgin Islands, she doesn’t have a home other than her boat. She plans to sail it back to Bristol for the town’s boat show June 2-3.
She has also accepted an invitation to march with her boat in the town’s famous Fourth of July parade.
She is contemplating writing a book about her experiences.
Although Lange says she doesn’t feel the need to try such a long trip again, she hasn’t ruled one out.
“Would I do this again?” she says, laughing quietly. “I might.”
“I wanted answers…. So I went to the sea. And she’s been extremely faithful.”
Donna Lange