Ryan Finn to Make Second Solo New York-to-San Francisco Attempt

Back in December 2020 we wrote about Ryan Finn, who was planning to be the only solo sailor to sail nonstop from New York to San Francisco on a proa. On January 1, 2020, he left aboard his 36-ft proa Jzerro, but equipment failure caused him to abort his attempt. He’s at it ‘aginn’.

Ryan Finn is now ready to make a second attempt to sail the almost 14,000-mile course from New York to San Francisco. Starting in New York in January 2022 won’t be warm, but it should allow him to round Cape Horn in reasonable weather and then turn back north for the long sail to San Francisco. You can keep up with his voyage here.

It’s a rarely attempted and daunting route that had its first, fully-crewed record of 89 days and 8 hours set by Flying Cloud in 1854. That record stood until Warren Luhrs on Thursday’s Child beat it with a time of 80 days and 20 hours. The current crewed record hasn’t been beaten since 2008, when it was set by Lionel Lemonchois aboard the 110-ft maxi catamaran Gitana 13, in a time of 43 days 3m 18s. Ryan Finn and Jzerra are not out to beat that record but to make their own mark for an innovative 36-ft South Pacific proa design.