William D. “Bill” Pinkney, the Southside Chicago native who had become the first Black sailor to circumnavigate the globe solo via the southern route, passed away recently at an Atlanta hospital. He was 87.
Pinkney, who lived in Puerto Rico, was in Atlanta working on a project with National Geographic and staying with a friend when he fell down a flight of steps and suffered a “catastrophic” injury, according to his ex-wife and dear friend Ina Pinkney.
“There was no coming back from that,” she said in a video she recorded and posted on Facebook.
Pinkney lived an extraordinary life for a kid who grew up under humble circumstances on the Southside of Chicago in the 1930s and 40s.
A Dangerous, History-Making Journey
Pinkney is most famous for undergoing a 22-month, 27,000-mile journey aboard a 47-foot cutter named The Commitment from the Boston Harbor down through the five southern capes and back to the Boston Harbor again, an arduous journey punctuated by unceasing storms, lost equipment, loneliness and all the danger a trip of that magnitude could evoke.
Investors backed Pinkney to begin that trip, which he did not too long before turning 55. He set sail from the Boston Harbor in August 1990, where he first traveled to Bermuda. From there, he journeyed to Salvador de Bahia, a Brazilian province settled by enslaved people from Africa, according to this Mystic Seaport Museum account of Pinkney’s life.
From there, Pinkney sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Town, South Africa, covering 3,000 miles in 34 days. He then completed a 5,300-mile trip from South Africa to a port in Tasmania, which took another 56 days.
But it was winter when he arrived at a port in Tasmania, Australia’s island state. By then, the waters were unnavigable, and Pinkney took a six-month hiatus from his trip to return to the U.S., where he visited schools and talked to children about his journey.
When he resumed his voyage in October 1991, it was to make a 4,600-mile, 65-day passage to the arduous Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America. A trip around the cape is considered the nautical equivalent of reaching the summit of Mount Everest. It’s the most dangerous ship passage in the world, a perfect storm marked by swirling winds, colossal waves, frigid water temperatures and sharp ocean floor rises.
Thousands of sailors have perished, and hundreds of boats shipwrecked, making the cape perhaps the largest underwater cemetery in the world. But Pinkney and The Commitment would press on, despite the sailing instruments he relied on failing him.
On Valentine’s Day in 1992, he successfully rounded Cape Horn and made it back to Boston Harbor in June of that year, arriving as the first Black sailor to circumnavigate the globe by way of Cape Horn successfully.
Valentine’s Day 1992, when Bill Pinkney rounded Cape Horn and eventually became the first Black person to sail solo to all five of the Southern capes of the world. (Photo, Facebook, Bill Pinkney).
Pinkney was ‘a Lot of Firsts’
That journey would only be one of his many awe-inspiring accomplishments.
“Bill has a very important place in the history of Chicago,” she said. “He is the first and only Black sailor to sail around the world solo under the five great capes. He is the only Black sailor inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame.”
The Mystic Seaport Museum also recognized Pinkney by awarding him its highest honor, the America and the Sea Award. According to Ina Pinkney, he was the first Black executive at Revlon Cosmetics and the first Black makeup artist in the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians film union.
“Bill was a lot of firsts, and Bill was the best at being the first,” she said.
Funeral arrangements are forthcoming.
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