Tinkerbelle
Encyclopedia
Sailboat
A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails. The term covers a variety of boats, larger than small vessels such as sailboards and smaller than sailing ships, but distinctions in the size are not strictly defined and what constitutes a sailing ship, sailboat, or a...
in which 47-year-old newspaperman Robert Manry
Robert Manry
Robert Manry was a copy editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer who in 1965 sailed from Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Falmouth, Cornwall, England, in a tiny sailboat named Tinkerbelle...
, a copy editor at the Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
Plain Dealer, single-handedly
Single-handed sailing
The sport of single-handed sailing or solo sailing is sailing with only one crewmember . The term is usually used with reference to ocean and long-distance sailing, and particularly competitive sailing....
crossed the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
in 1965. At the time, it was the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic nonstop. He left Falmouth, Massachusetts
Falmouth, Massachusetts
Falmouth is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States; Barnstable County is coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 31,531 at the 2010 census....
on June 1 and arrived in Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
78 days later greeted by an armada of small boats and a huge crowd. Mayor Samuel A. Hooper of Falmouth officially welcomed him at the town's Custom House Quay. Robert Manry's wife Virginia and his children, Robin and Douglas, were also there, having been flown in from Willowick, Ohio
Willowick, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 14,361 people, 6,101 households, and 4,112 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,709.2 people per square mile . There were 6,272 housing units at an average density of 2,493.4 per square mile...
.
During the voyage Manry was knocked overboard by big waves, suffered from hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
s, repaired a broken rudder
Rudder
A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...
in mid-ocean, and was woken up one morning by a surfacing submarine
USS Tench (SS-417)
USS Tench , the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tench. Her keel was laid down on 1 April 1944 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 7 July 1944, sponsored by Claudia Alta Johnson, the wife of Rep. Lyndon Baines...
. Manry later wrote about the voyage and its preparation in his book Tinkerbelle.
Tinkerbelle, a little wooden Old Town "Whitecap" sailboat, was originally built by the Old Town Canoe Co. of Old Town, Maine
Old Town, Maine
Old Town is a city in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 7,840 at the 2010 census. The city's developed area is chiefly located on a relatively large island, though its boundaries extend beyond that...
. Manry extensively modified her himself for the voyage by adding a cabin
Cabin (ship)
A cabin or berthing is an enclosed space generally on a ship or an aircraft. A cabin which protrudes above the level of a ship's deck may be referred to as a "deckhouse."-Sailing ships:...
and more seaworthy cockpit
Cockpit (sailing)
In the Royal Navy, the term cockpit originally referred to the area where the coxswain was stationed. This led to the word being used to refer to the area towards the stern of a small decked vessel that houses the rudder controls...
. Tinkerbelle's official registration number painted on her bow was OH 7013 AR.
Tinkerbelle is on display indoors at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum
Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum
The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum, is a museum in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Part of the Western Reserve Historical Society, it was founded by industrialist, Frederick C. Crawford, of TRW and opened in 1965...
in Cleveland, Ohio.