Ryan Finn to embark on historic nonstop sail from Brooklyn to San Francisco
The Clipper Ship Flying Cloud, a 225 ft. sailing marvel transported ambitious gold prospectors from New York around South America to San Francisco in a record 89 days in the 1850s. It would take 135 years before that time fell to a Frenchman, Philippe Monnet, who eclipsed the record with a solo passage of 81 days sailing a multihulled vessel. (however, he did stop to repair a broken hull) This January, Ryan Finn is planning to break the nonstop solo record. He aims to complete the 14,000-mile route nonstop in two months.
What kind of man would test his endurance in these extreme endeavors? Ryan is both a nomadic, romantic adventurer and a surprisingly grounded, regular guy. During this journey Ryan will be intently focused, adjusting his sails, standing up in the companionway of his cabin peering over the earth’s circumference, mesmerized by the shifting sky and sea as he speeds along its surface. He is a confident but modest man. Having acquired the skills of boat maintenance and seamanship over two decades of dedicated sailing, he is ready for this ultimate challenge.
Ryan began cruising oceans innocently, twenty years earlier, when as a student at The Savannah College of Art and Design, he decided one semester to sail back to campus from his hometown of New Orleans, instead of driving the interstates. He sailed eastward around Key West, through the Bahamas and into the friendly and warm Gulf Stream currents to his campus in southeast Georgia. A seed was planted in his soul, and he knew intuitively that he would be seeking out more opportunities to sail the open seas. As he humbly says, I acquired this craft of solo sailing step by step over two decades.