Vito Dumas

Vito Dumas (September 26, 1900 – March 28, 1965) was an Argentine single-handed sailor who set out on a solo circumnavigation of the of the Southern Ocean in 1942, while the world was in the depths of world War II He left Buenos Aires on 27 June, sailing LEHG II, a 31-foot ketch equipped with only the most basic and makeshift gear. he had no radio, for fear of being shot as a spy, and was forced to stuff his clothes with newspaper to keep warm.

Making only three landfalls, the legs of his voyage were the longest that had been made by a single-hander in what was seen as a powerful retort to a world which had chosen to divide itself by war. Dumas recounted the experience in his book Los Cuarenta Bramadores: La Vuelta al Mundo Por la “Ruta Imposible” (Alone Through The Roaring Forties).

He donated his boat to the Argentine Navy but after a few years of neglect, she was finally wrecked against a pier at the entrance of La Plata’s port in 1966. A wealthy Argentine yachtsman paid to have her restored and LEHG II is now on display in Tigre on the River Plate.