Liverpudlian Sails 4 Cancer

"I’m not some ‘nutter’ with a death-wish," claims Liverpool resident Tom McNally in defense of his planned double-Atlantic crossing in his 3′ 10" homebuilt boat Big C. "After 25 years of small boat ocean cruising I think I’ve heard it all. I know what I’m doing, and constantly prove it by (eventually) arriving unaided at named destinations across ‘the big pond’."

McNally has indeed been sailing impossibly small boats across the Atlantic for some time. He broke the record for the smallest boat to cross any ocean — originally set by Sunnyvale resident Hugo Vihlen in 1968 aboard his 5′ 11" boat April Fool — in 1993 aboard the 5′ 4 1/2" Vera Hugh. But Vihlen wouldn’t let the record go so easily. He’d been planning another assault on the Atlantic and was in the process of building another boat — one longer than Vera Hugh. There was nothing to do but chop off enough to make it 5′ 4". Later that year, Vihlen snatched the record back from McNally.

Now McNally is leaving nothing to chance. Big C is built with foam-sandwich construction making her stronger and lighter than any of his previous boats. An official start date hasn’t been announced but McNally plans to sail from Cadiz to Central America, then on to Texas and Newfoundland, then back across the pond to Liverpool — a 10,000 mile trip.

While the primary purpose of the trip is to break the record, McNally also hopes to generate donations for Sail 4 Cancer, a non-profit cancer charity. (His mother died of the disease during another of his small-boat voyages.) For more on his effort, go to www.sail4cancer.org.