Ann Davison (1) (1913–1992)

Davison was originally known as a woman aviator of the inter-war period. She and her husband were also famous for attempting to live self-sufficiently on an island in Loch Lomond for some years. After the war, their plans to live on a sailing boat ended in disaster when, fleeing their creditors, they were shipwrecked off Portland Bill, leaving Davison a widow with a mountain of debts. As she describes here, she managed to pay everything off by doing odd jobs and writing a couple of books about her misadventures (Home was an island and Last voyage), and had enough left over, with a bit of sponsorship, to buy a small (25ft) yacht and provision it for an Atlantic crossing. She made it from Plymouth to New York, stopping off en route in Brittany, Spain, Morocco, the Canary Islands and the West Indies, and thus became the first woman to complete a solo Atlantic crossing.

The book is interesting both because of this achievement (even if it was soon surpassed by others crossing non-stop, under school-leaving age, etc., it was at the time something that many people believed couldn't or shouldn't be done) and because of Davison's surprising frankness about her experience. She makes it pretty clear that, whilst she loved living on a boat, she found the actual experience of being alone at sea frightening and unpleasant most of the time. It's only towards the end of the book, on some of the more benign Caribbean legs of her journey, that she starts to discover some pleasure in the actual business of sailing. Up to that point, it has been something she felt that she had to do, rather than something she wanted. Rather different from most accounts of adventure.… (plus d'informations)