Japanese man becomes oldest man in world to navigate alone across Pacific

An 83-year-old boater arrived in Japan early Saturday morning after a non-stop solo voyage across the Pacific, becoming the oldest person ever to reach the feat.

The arrival of the famous adventurer Kenichi Horie in the Kii Strait off western Japan capped a two-month voyage that began from a marina in San Francisco in March.

This was the latest accomplishment at sea of the Japanese octogenarian who in 1962 voyaged from Japan to San Francisco at age 23, becoming the first person in the world to sail alone across the Pacific Ocean.

The PR team for his latest trip said that Horie’s return to Japan made him the world’s oldest man for a solo uninterrupted crossing of the largest and deepest sea on Earth.

“I’m on the verge of crossing the finish line,” Horie wrote on his blog on Friday after what he described as a three-day battle with the resistance of a current.

“I am so worn out.”

His 1962 Pacific crossing made headlines as he embarked on a voyage without a passport, largely smuggled to the United States.

Sixty years ago, “I was constantly anxious and stressful at the thought of getting caught… My state was worse,’ he wrote on a blog in April.

“But this time it’s different, I’ve been sent by a lot of people and have their support through the tracking systems and wireless radio.

Apart from crossing the Pacific in 1962, Horie is known to have sailed solo around the world in 1974 and his longitudinal journey worldwide from 1978 to 1982.

The latest expedition was the first he had started since 2008 when he sailed from Honolulu to Kii Strait on a 31-foot wave boat.