Taking on the Waves: Horie Kenichi / Ocean Adventurer

"Direct Talk"

On June 5th, 2022,

an 83-year-old man and his yacht

docked at Nishinomiya Port in west-central Japan.

Horie Kenichi.

It was the end of a record-breaking journey

that had started in San Francisco, California.

He became the oldest person to sail solo across the Pacific.

I'm still in the prime of youth.

In 1962, Horie became the first person

to complete a solo nonstop voyage across the Pacific in a compact yacht.

He's since had many adventures upon the high seas,

setting multiple records along the way.

What keeps Horie going?

Today he shares his passion for ocean adventures.

March 26th, 2022.

San Francisco, California.

Horie's yacht, the "Mermaid III", sets sail,

passing under the Golden Gate Bridge.

His roughly 8,500-kilometer journey will take him by Hawaii

on his way to Nishinomiya, in Hyogo Prefecture.

He'll make the crossing alone.

Soon after his departure, he encountered a storm.

Here's an excerpt from his travel log.

"March 27th.

Soon after setting sail, I find myself baptized by a storm.

It's rough! But I must endure."

Right after I set sail,

I could tell that the wind was strong, that a storm was coming.

After you encounter one or two storms, you gradually get used to it.

But I remember thinking the one at the beginning was definitely a bit rough.

"April 10th.

Strong winds and rough seas for days now.

Bumpy ride.

My hands are full keeping the yacht under control and on course.

No margin for error."

What was life like for Horie on his yacht?

His cabin below the deck is compact.

There's not enough headroom to stand.

I have this space here where I can stretch my legs and rest.

There's one space on this side and one over there as well.

When the wind is making the yacht tilt toward one side,

I rest on one side or the other to balance out the boat as much as I can.

In terms of food, I basically eat rice

and these packs of ready-made curry.

And this is my toilet.

His boat is equipped with a seawater toilet.

These days I hardly ever get seasick.

Well, for the first couple of days after departing,

I don't have much of an appetite,

so I think that could be seasickness.

On my first voyage, I did throw up a few times.

But that hasn't happened to me in decades.

Horie was born in 1938 in Osaka, Japan.

He started yachting in high school.

The high school I enrolled in just happened to have a school yacht club.

I was never... how do you say...

muscular. I'm not particularly strong physically.

These yachts could move using only the power of the wind.

When I got to ride on one for the first time,

I thought it was amazing.

It could sail not only with the wind but against it as well.

It was incredible.

So I joined the yacht club,

but at the time it never even occurred to me

that you could cross the Pacific in a yacht,

or even go around the world in a yacht.

In the beginning, I just wanted to learn how to sail on a yacht at the beach.

That's all.

This is where we'd practice.

At the time, I'd never even gone to nearby Awaji Island.

You can see it from here, but I'd never been there.

I'd look at yachting magazines

and read about how someone had used a certain yacht to cross the Atlantic,

or how someone had used a certain yacht to cross the Pacific.

Gradually, those magazines made me realize

just how much potential was in these yachts.

Eventually, I was just itching to cross the Pacific Ocean myself,

to sail all the way to America.

In 1962, at the age of 23,

Horie decided to do just that.

He set sail from Nishinomiya Yacht Harbor,

bound for San Francisco Bay.

I felt this compulsion, this deep drive from within.

People are often impressed that I decided to do it,

but actually, there was no moment where I made up my mind.

It was like my boat was pushed out of the harbor.

I just never decided to stop.

Sailing across the Pacific solo in such a small boat was unheard of.

Afraid that people would try to stop him,

Horie set out under the cover of night, carrying no passport.

I figured, worst-case scenario, I'd be deported after arriving in America.

My goal was the voyage itself,

so as long as I didn't get the death penalty,

I was OK with the consequences.

With GPS yet to be invented,

he relied on nautical charts and navigation tools to read his location from the stars.

Well, basically, I think you don't need GPS to sail to America.

If you were trying to get to a remote island in the middle of nowhere in the Pacific,

you'd want a navigation system that was quite precise.

But I was trying to get to America.

It wasn't like I was in danger of overshooting it.

Horie arrived in San Francisco after 94 days at sea.

He says that what he felt was not a sense of accomplishment,

but something different.

It took me three months to reach San Francisco.

And when the city came into view, I had this feeling,

that with more food and a better yacht, I could go twice as far,

even four times as far.

His adventures had only started.

He'd go on to circumnavigate the globe along westbound and eastbound routes,

even north to south.

Basically, the longer the distance, the more challenging it is.

But I think there's nothing more exciting than aiming high and going for it.

I think that all human beings essentially have a desire

to shoot for the stars and to succeed.

Horie has also achieved a number of world firsts,

including solo Pacific voyages on solar- and wave-powered boats.

(What drives you to attempt feats no one has ever done before?)

I don't think it's a particular drive that I have.

It's something that drives humanity as a whole.

Not just me. Human beings are always striving for world firsts.

I do what I do because I think that I can do it.

So it's not just me.

I think everyone has that desire.

It's just a matter of whether or not you can do it.

It's not a particular disposition that I have.

But in 2008, Horie stepped away from sailing.

He was 70 at the time.

What I do puts a significant strain on my family,

and so there was this sense of, "Isn't that enough?",

"Isn't it time to hang it up for good?"

"Yeah," I figured, "I guess you're right."

So for a while, I lounged around as an armchair sailor.

But eventually, Horie found himself called to adventure once again.

After about ten years, I started getting the itch.

For ten years, I'd let the desire to get out there build up inside of me.

So, simply put, there was a sense the time had come.

Horie set about building a yacht.

His goal was a solo voyage across the Pacific.

The completed sailboat was six meters long and two meters across at its widest point.

A yacht just big enough for one.

It's all about how high you can set the bar.

If I had a crew, I could drink beer and nap all day,

and we'd make it to our destination.

Doing it solo is not a matter of preference.

It's a matter of setting the bar as high as possible.

So in my mind, it's a fundamental to what I'm trying to do.

March 26th, 2022,

60 years on from his first trans-Pacific voyage,

Horie set sail for Japan from San Francisco.

On April 15th, he sailed past Diamond Head in Hawaii,

a week ahead of schedule.

For some time after that, it was smooth sailing.

"April 24th. I took a seawater shower.

Instead of wiping off with a towel,

I let the trade winds do their work.

I'm a happy man."

But one last obstacle loomed ahead -

the Kuroshio Current, which flows off Japan's southern coast.

If caught in the current, he was in danger of being swept off course.

If I got swept away, I was in trouble, because my yacht has no motor.

So I was worried.

But although my yacht is small, it has good performance.

As long as there was even a slight wind,

it had the power to cut right through that Kuroshio Current.

That being said, there was no guarantee that there'd be a wind when I got there.

So there was a danger of there being no wind and my boat being swept away by the current.

So I was worried, but it turned out all right. I made it through.

On June 5th,

70 days after he'd set sail from San Francisco,

he arrived at his home port of Nishinomiya in Japan.

Welcome home!

Horie-san takes his first steps back on dry land! Congratulations!

I've given this voyage my all, mentally and physically.

I feel like I'm in the prime of youth.

I still have much to learn. I'll work hard to be a late bloomer.

Thank you everyone for your continued support.

He's amazing.

I'm 65 right now.

I don't know if I'll be that active when I'm his age.

I hope this will give hope to young people now and to come.

I want to be like Horie Kenichi and go someplace on a yacht.

To Brazil.

I have something that I know I can do.

So I'm compelled...

to make it happen.

Take the voyage I just completed.

I did it because I believed that I could.

I wouldn't know what to do with myself otherwise.

People have a sense of their limits, of what they are capable of.

I do what I do because I feel it's within my capabilities.

The beauty of the sea, what I always feel when I'm on a voyage,

this yacht harbor is man-made,

but when you're out there on the high seas, it's all pristine,

totally untouched by human hands.

It's like being out in the wilderness.

Nature in its purest form.

You're seeing the Earth in its most natural state.

That is something that really speaks to me.

Seven decades after first setting foot on a yacht,

Horie says he's discovered something new.

Lately, I feel like I can speak with the wind and the waves.

I'll be out there, waiting for wind.

And then there'll be a breeze,

and it's like it's calling out to me,

"Here you go. Here's the wind you were looking for."

Just like it's speaking to me.

That feeling is something else, something only I can understand.