Circumnavigation by search engine

Need to fix something? YouTube has the video. The knowledge on the internet is limitless, or is it? Is ‘Seamanship’ something to Google? Rescue services around the world should be concerned with stories like this:

Last year, Luke Hartley was teaching music at Washington Middle School in Seattle. But this year, he’s on a journey to circumnavigate the world in a sailboat.

“I had the dream of sailing around the world,” said Hartley. “I came across a YouTube video a couple of years ago that was just like a boat tour of a vessel that was fully equipped to live off-grid and I became just fascinated with sailing and kind of obsessed with it.”

So, Hartley said he sold what little he had and bought a boat. Right now, he’s in Mexico before eventually setting off to French Polynesia to begin his trip around the world — a trip he expects to last for about five years.

Hartley is new to sailing. His only prior experience was hitchhiking around Mexico on other people’s boats. “I never grew up sailing,” he explained. “That’s really the only practical experience I got other than Google and YouTube.” – Full report