Robin Lee Graham // Fifty Years Since Sailing DOVE
On the Wind Sailing
Andy Schell
4.8 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 5 April 2022
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#352. Robin Lee Graham made history when he left California in 1965, at the age of sixteen, to sail around the world alone on DOVE. He met his wife Patti on this epic journey, which he completed in 1970. The voyage was followed by a flurry of media and a difficult return to life ashore. The Graham's moved to Montana soon after the circumnavigation, where they built a life with their two kids, Quimby and Ben. Robin and Patti still live on Flathead Lake, where their close-knit family gathers often.
Robin wrote three books with the help of Derek Gill: Dove, The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone, and Home is the Sailor. Dove was adapted into a Hollywood movie in 1974.
Emma's mother, Lynn, sailed across the Atlantic in 1978, when she was twelve years old. Lynn had the first edition of The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone on the shelf beside her bunk, and spent their 26 day passage from Maine to Ireland flipping through its pages. Emma grew up with that same copy on her shelf, which sparked her trajectory towards sailing.
In February 2022, 50 years after Robin's circumnavigation, Emma traveled up to Montana to interview Robin in person, in the house he built on Flathead Lake. The two sailors talked about Robin's early sailing days, his relationship with his father, his faith, and how he and Patti have built their life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This season of On the Wind is sponsored by Athletic Greens. |
| 0:03.8 | I've been pretty curious what all the hype around this company is hearing them advertised on other podcasts, and I was curious if I would like it because I'm not much of a vitamins and supplements kind of girl. |
| 0:15.3 | But I've actually been surprised at how much I've enjoyed it. |
| 0:18.6 | I put one scoop of AG1 in a bottle of water with an ice cube every morning, shake it up, |
| 0:24.1 | and that's the first thing I start my day with. |
| 0:26.5 | The founder created Athletic Greens after sort of realizing how hard it was to create a |
| 0:33.0 | nutrition routine on your own and how expensive that was. |
| 0:36.0 | So he combined all of these 75 multivitamins and |
| 0:40.3 | minerals into one powder that you can take every day. The company is also climate neutral certified |
| 0:46.5 | and they have a lot of really cool sustainability and charity values that I look up to a lot. |
| 0:52.6 | So you'll hear more about this at the end of the episode, but you can go to |
| 0:56.7 | athletic greens.com slash on the wind to get started. On the wind is also supported by the Harbor Burn |
| 1:03.9 | Canon company. If you have a boat, you need a cannon. Go to harborburn.com or wait till the end of the |
| 1:09.9 | episode to learn more. |
| 1:11.7 | This season is also supported by offshore passage opportunities. You can hear more about them |
| 1:17.5 | at the end of the episode or go to sailopo.com. I grew up on stories of ocean crossings. My mom sailed |
| 1:25.4 | across the Atlantic with her family in 1978 when she was 13 years old. |
| 1:30.7 | On her bookshelf was the boy who sailed around the world alone with a photo of a young Robin Lee |
| 1:35.8 | Graham across the cover. She flipped through it on their 26-day passage from Maine to Ireland, |
| 1:42.0 | amazed that a kid could do this by themselves. That same book |
| 1:45.8 | sat on my shelf, on my family's Crisscraft, the motorboat we lived on during the summers of my |
| 1:51.0 | adolescence. Parked at a hot dock on the Hudson River, I read about Robin's adventures, sailing a wild, |
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