MISAKI, Kanagawa Pref. — Sailing legend Minoru Saito cruised into the record books Monday evening when his aging, battered sloop Shuten-dohji II crossed a line off the port of Misaki, ending a 7 1/2-month, nonstop unassisted solo circumnavigation and making him at 71 the oldest person ever to perform the feat.
The line was where Saito, then 70, hoisted sail Oct. 16 to embark on his adversity-fraught odyssey Challenge 7 aboard the 15-year-old, 15-meter sloop, which has taken him over those years more than the distance to the moon.
His arrival Monday marks his seventh solo circumnavigation. This time around, famed sailor Kenichi Horie and Saito shadowed each other, but they denied it was a "race." Horie departed Oct. 1 from Osaka aboard his sleek, new Suntory Ltd.-sponsored sloop Mermaid. He is expected to arrive back there Tuesday.
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