Evgeny Gvozdev is a yachtsman. Evgeny Gvozdev
What does it take to make a dream come true? Evgeny Gvozdev needed almost nothing to set off on his first circumnavigation at the age of 58. In retirement, he devoted himself to the ocean.
In the last years of the famous traveler's life, he was called grandfather. Yevgeny Gvozdev was born in Pinsk, Belarus, in 1934, lost his parents early, wandered around the USSR, served in the army, graduated from a sailor in Astrakhan, and after 35 years worked as a ship mechanic on fishing vessels. He retired and decided to sail around the world ... His dream came true, he went "around the ball" on a pleasure dinghy, which was specially allocated to him by a yacht company.
In Makhachkala, where Gvozdev lived for a long time, the yachtsman was recognized on the streets, asked to tell about distant countries. Grandfather did not refuse anyone, he gave lectures, but he was eager for another voyage. In the apartment, on the couch in front of the TV, he felt uneasy, he refused on principle to devote his pension to such an idle waste of life.
On the second round-the-world voyage on the Said yacht (see photo), Gvozdev went with 100 dollars in his pocket. In ports all over the world he was met with great honor. The yachtsman said that in the USA all the local media wrote about him - from children's to glossy magazines. The very image of a "half-crazy" Russian bearded man attracted attention to him. In Russia, little was written about Gvozdev, sparingly, as if reluctantly. This is partly due to the “opinion” that Gvozdev allegedly dishonors Russia by being “so poor”, that everything is given to him, although he does not ask for anything special. After all, he didn’t ask for 15 years, while he received permission to go abroad ...
Strange and criminal logic. It also makes us proud of Abramovich's largest yacht and ashamed of the Russian retired sailor who challenged the ocean.
Gvozdev was asked why the Said yacht was so small and he answered: “What a balcony, such a yacht.” When the material was published that Gvozdev was going on his second circumnavigation, a letter from Canada immediately arrived in the mail. The author of an article in an American magazine mixed up the photographs of Gvozdev's yachts and illustrated the material with a photograph of the Said yacht, which Gvozdev was building on his balcony at that time. He literally collected material almost from landfills. He received his pension of 3,000 rubles for 35 years of experience as a ship mechanic and built a yacht 3.7 meters long.
In a letter that came from across the ocean, a wealthy businessman offered Gvozdev his yacht for travel. With the only condition that the yachtsman starts from Canada under the Canadian flag. Gvozdev could not agree to this. It was important for him that the yacht was built in Russia, and sailed under the Russian flag. Yevgeny Alexandrovich did not succumb to temptation. He completed his yacht, lowered it from the balcony and went to the second circumnavigation.
Gvozdev and the Pirates
During the first round-the-world trip off the coast of Somalia, Gvozdev came across real pirates. The yacht was cleaned clean, even the glasses were taken away. As Gvozdev later admitted, he was not killed for three reasons. First, he had no weapons. Secondly, he strove to remain calm, even conducted an educational program for the pirates on the operation of the first-aid kit. Thirdly, according to Gvozdev, he survived because he was from Russia. According to Yevgeny Alexandrovich, the pirates did not allow themselves to shoot a Russian from Russian weapons. Of course, there is a healthy dose of irony in this assessment. They didn't shoot him, but they left him with nothing. They even took cotton pants of size 60.
Gvozdev, of course, went further. After the robbery, the extreme conditions became even more extreme. I had to eat and drink three times less than usual, the left half of the body began to go numb. But the old sailor came to the port, where kind people met, got out, cured of scurvy, helped with food and equipment. Then, in Djibouti, the captain of the French frigate "Jules Verne" asked a Russian sailor: "What did the Russian government and fleet do in response to the robbery of your yacht in Somalia?"
Gvozdev and the whale
During the first round-the-world voyage near Tahiti, Gvozdev's yacht was dangerously close to the whale, he lifted the boat and Lena even slid down the whale's side back into the water. The whale did not disturb Evgeny Gvozdev anymore, but the emotions from the meeting almost forced the yachtsman in Australia to sell the yacht and return to Russia by plane. While the "grandfather" was going to Australia, he reconciled himself, survived this experience, and moved on. Gvozdev had a principle: if there was a desire and ability to work, the rest would follow. He had both in abundance.
Four rules
Evgeny Gvozdev was a practical, not a theoretician of navigation. He never taught anyone, he shared his experience. Here are four things a yachtsman thinks it takes to sail around the world. Note, not a word about money.
1. Preliminary training for gaining sportswear and psychological stability.
2. Continuation of psychological training already at sea: the yacht is sailing in a normal mode, and the captain plays emergency situations in his mind - a hole, a fire, a coup, a fall overboard - and "takes measures" to eliminate their consequences.
3. A special psychological comfort is created by the absence of obligations to sponsors in terms of the timing and range of the trip. That is, it is better if the captain is free from promises and decides to stop or continue the voyage.
4. Finally, the most important weapon in the fight against loneliness is being busy. The struggle for the survivability of the ship and ensuring its progress require so much strength that they do not leave time to concentrate and feel the fear of loneliness. That is, the old motto is in force: do business and go forward.
See you in the ocean
Nikolai Litau, the captain of the yacht "Apostol Andrei", recalled that before his third circumnavigation of the world, Evgeny Gvozdev said goodbye to yachtsmen like this: "See you in the ocean." According to the recollections of his friends, it was important for the sailor Gvozdev that his life was cut short at sea, he could not die in a city clinic.
The yachtsman died at the age of 75. His yacht was caught in a severe storm near Gibraltar. In one of the interviews, Evgeny Alexandrovich spoke about Gibraltar, arguing that it was there that yachtsmen met.
His name should be on a par with Thor Heyerdahl, Francis Chichester, Tim Severin ... And to be fair, it should be the first on this list!
Gvozdev was treated differently during his lifetime. Some considered him an eccentric and adventurer, others considered him a hero. He was admired and they said about him that he was a disgrace to his Motherland. He was called a brave navigator and a poor lone vagabond. But hardly anyone could compare with him in dedication and perseverance in the realization of his dreams. Joshua Slocum, Alain Gerbaud, Francis Chichester, Thor Heyerdahl, Eric Tabarly, Fedor Konyukhov - the names of these yachtsmen and travelers are known all over the world. They talk about them, write about them, make films, numerous Internet sites are devoted to them. For better or worse, but the fact remains: to become famous, you need PR, professional management, a support team ... Evgeny Gvozdev did not have any of this, and therefore his name is still known only to a narrow circle of insiders. He was not a hero of his time...
It is hard to believe
Which of us in childhood did not dream of distant lands and sailing around the world? But with age, childhood dreams are forgotten. Family, work, everyday problems - what kind of circumnavigations are there ... You have to put up with it and meekly accept the realities of everyday life. But Yevgeny Gvozdev did not want to accept. Imagine: an ordinary pensioner goes around the planet with practically no money on a pleasure mini-yacht that is absolutely not adapted for long-distance voyages. And then he builds his own boat, even smaller, on the balcony of his small apartment, and makes a second solo trip around the world on it! Finally, at the age of 75, on another miniature yacht, he sets off for the third round-the-world trip. All these are real facts, although at first it is difficult to believe in them ... Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gvozdev was born in 1934 in the Belarusian city of Pinsk. He lost his parents early - his father was repressed, and he disappeared in the camps during the years of Stalinist terror, his mother died during an air raid at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Eugene ended up with distant relatives, and from the age of 15 he lived in Dagestan, which became his second home. Here, in Makhachkala, he graduated from high school, then from a nautical school and worked as a mechanic on fishing vessels for more than 30 years. 
Somewhere in the late 50s, Gvozdev first read about a solo circumnavigation on the yacht of the Frenchman Marcel Bardiot, and at the same time he had the idea to do something similar. He began to collect information, re-read everything that could be found in the libraries. He was particularly impressed by the book of the world's first solo circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, "Sailing Alone". Eugene decided at all costs to fulfill his dream and, following the example of Slocum, go around the globe. In 1977-1979, Gvozdev rebuilt the old wooden whaleboat he inherited into a sailing yacht, which he called "GETAN" - after the first letters of the names: Gvozdev Evgeniy, Tatyana (his wife), Alexander (son), Natalya (daughter). At the end of that year, he set off on his first long voyage under sail. In stormy conditions, Evgeny traveled along the route Makhachkala - Fort Shevchenko - Krasnovodsk - Baku, twice crossed the Caspian Sea. 
In subsequent years, he proceeded along and across the Caspian Sea, leaving 4000 miles behind the stern of his "GETAN". Having gained the necessary experience, Evgeny Gvozdev considered himself ready for a solo ocean voyage. However, he could not leave his family and work for a long time. And getting a passport with an exit visa for an individual traveler in those years was almost impossible. In general, the struggle of the future circumnavigator with the Soviet bureaucracy is a separate story, and it is not known whether he could have emerged victorious if it had not been for the collapse of the USSR ... An old dream took on real shape in the spring of 1992, when Gvozdev convinced a businessman he knew to provide him with a micro-class pleasure yacht to sail to the USA for the celebrations in honor of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. This transition was supposed to be a good advertisement for the products of the little-known Sovmarket shipyard from the Kazakh city of Aktau (FortShevchenko). 
The yacht - a 5.5-meter dinghy "Lena" - was indeed transferred to Gvozdev, for temporary use. However, due to difficulties with the execution of all travel documents and permits, the yacht was stuck in Novorossiysk for a long time and was late for the anniversary sailing regatta in America. When the paperwork was over, winter came, and the owners of the shipyard decided to limit themselves to the transition to Istanbul and back. Based on this, an estimate of expenses was also drawn up - $ 100 and 50 thousand rubles, at the then exchange rate, in total, this is a little more than two hundred "green". 
But it turned out that after leaving Novorossiysk on December 15, 1992, Evgeny Gvozdev returned only three and a half years later - on July 19, 1996. During this time, he crossed the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal went to Pacific Ocean, reached the coast of Australia, from there - to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. And all this without the slightest international legal, financial or even moral support from state and diplomatic bodies. He repeatedly found himself in a difficult situation, starved, was captured and robbed by Somali pirates and miraculously survived ... But nevertheless, the risky journey was successfully completed. It was the world's first solo round-the-world trip on a pleasure dinghy. 
But the Motherland did not appreciate the feat. The few mentions of Gvozdev in the media presented his swimming as more of a curiosity. In the "dashing nineties" there were other heroes in the country ... Evgeny Alexandrovich actually did not expect special attention to your person. He did not pursue fame. Having returned the Lena yacht to its rightful owner, he immediately took up new project. He decided to repeat the circumnavigation, but on his own homemade yacht. Which he undertook to build ... on the balcony of his "Khrushchev"! It took three years to build the new boat. It turned out to be quite miniature - its fiberglass body had a length of only 3.7 meters (the maximum that the size of the balcony allowed). The design feature was the keel, which fit 120 kg of lead; he provided the ship with high stability. The baby yacht was named "Said" - in honor of the mayor of Makhachkala, Said Amirov, who provided financial assistance to Gvozdev. The yacht was removed from the balcony by a crane, and after a short test, its designer set off on her second round-the-world trip. June 2, 1999 "Said" left Novorossiysk and headed for the Bosphorus. 
The new voyage was more difficult. Firstly, the tiny size of the vessel forced to save on everything: take a minimum of water and provisions, even the outboard motor "Veterok" had to be left on the shore and go only under sail. Secondly, the route was now laid not through the Panama Canal, but around South America. Gvozdev had to follow not only in tropical waters, but also to wade through the "roaring forties" latitudes. The second voyage, like the first, dragged on for years. The Canary Islands, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, the Strait of Magellan… The Pacific Ocean was conquered with great difficulty. The diminutive size of the yacht did not allow taking a sufficient supply of fresh water, and the desperate traveler went on a four-month voyage, hoping for rain, which, unfortunately, was not there. For three months Gvozdev suffered from thirst. Next - Tahiti, Australia, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea ... On July 10, 2003, Gvozdev arrived in Sochi, and on August 9 - in Makhachkala. Here, a joyful meeting awaited the traveler, and the mayor of the city handed him the keys to a new apartment. But Gvozdev could not sit at home. In less than 75 years, he again went to the ocean. On the new 5.5-meter boat "GETAN-2" (an improved version of the serial yacht of the St. Petersburg company "Ricochet" with a new keel fin), he set out to go around the world for the third time.
Evgeny Alexandrovich Gvozdev was born in 1934 in the Belarusian city of Pinsk. The boy's father was taken away in 1937, and he did not return from Stalin's dungeons. Eugene grew up with his mother, but during the Great Patriotic War, she died during the bombing, and he lived with a distant relative. After graduating from the Naval School in Astrakhan, Gvozdev began working on ships, and he spent more than three decades as a ship mechanic.
Gvozdev became a yachtsman already in the late 1970s, his first yacht was a home-made single-deck yacht, which Evgeny built from an old whaleboat decommissioned ashore.
He named his ship "Getan", the name was made up of the names of Evgeny himself and his family - Evgeny Gvozdev (GE), his wife Tatiana (T), son Alexander (A) and daughter Natalya (N). So, on his yacht, he first crossed the Caspian Sea, and later, according to estimates, he crossed the Caspian about 50 times.
On July 7, 1992, Evgeny Gvozdev set off on his first circumnavigation on his new yacht, Lena. It was a small vessel, 5.5 meters in length, and its round-the-world trip became a record in its own way, since Gvozdev was the first to do such a thing on such a small vessel. The journey turned out to be quite dangerous - in August 1995, in the waters of Somalia (Somali), he was attacked by local pirates, robbed and almost killed.
The second time Gvozdev went on a circumnavigation on May 17, 1999, he sailed from Makhachkala, where he lived with his family. His vessel was the 3.7-meter Said yacht, and later it was called the smallest sailing yacht that passed through the Strait of Magellan. By the way, three recent years he prepared and repaired his yacht, sewed sails, glued and prepared for the next voyage. This time the traveler was already 65 years old. In the sea, Gvozdev also met the new millennium, it was just before the entrance to the Strait of Magellan. The second circumnavigation of the world ended 50 months later, on July 10, 2003.
However, Gvozdev did not stop there. So, on his new 5.5-meter yacht called Getan-2, 74-year-old Gvozdev went on another round-the-world swim on September 19, 2008, starting in Novorossiysk. Alas, this journey was not destined to end happily. In October, Gvozdev reported that he had safely crossed the Black Sea, and in late November he was caught in a severe storm off the coast of Italy. Communication with the captain was interrupted on December 1, and a day later, on December 2, 2008, Italian sailors found the body of Yevgeny Gvozdev on the beach. His yacht "Getan-2" was found not far from her captain a few days later.
Thus ended the life of the brave Russian navigator, who brought worldwide fame to Russian yachting. In memory of Yevgeny Gvozdev, his yacht "Lena" is exhibited in the Moscow yacht club "Admiral", and in one of the schools in Makhachkala, where he lived, his yacht "Said" is exhibited.
Best of the day
Surprisingly, even during his lifetime, Eugene himself admitted that he was always afraid of the sea, and it was this fear that forced him to go to sea over and over again, overcoming himself and his fear. If the last circumnavigation of the world had ended successfully, then Evgeny Gvozdev would certainly not have stopped there. Alas, this was not destined to come true. By the way, Gvozdev's friends know that he, a sailor to the marrow of his bones, was always afraid to die on land. So, fate gave him his last chance - Evgeny Gvozdev, as befits a sailor, died at sea.
His life credo was the postulate that a person should create something that can be delightfully told to children and grandchildren, to do a deed that is useful for society and the individual. And Yevgeny Alexandrovich did not deviate from this motto: in his life he made two round-the-world trips, which went down in the history of navigation as the most dangerous and difficult, because they were made on tiny pleasure sailing dinghies.
Life aboard a ship
Yevgeny Gvozdev was born on March 11, 1934 in the small Belarusian town of Pinsk. The childhood of the future traveler passed in difficult conditions: as soon as the boy was three years old, his father was arrested by the Soviet authorities. Yevgeny did not see him again, his father was not destined to return from the camps - he became one of the countless victims of the Stalinist machine of repression. And soon, when the war began, an even greater loss awaited the boy: his mother died as a result of fascist shelling, and distant relatives accepted the orphan Yevgeny Gvozdev into their family.
From the age of 15, Gvozdev has been living in the city of Makhachkala. At this time, the young man begins to get involved in the sea and ships, so when the question arose about his future fate, Eugene chose the profession of a ship mechanic, which he received at the Astrakhan Naval School. For the next 35 years, Gvozdev has been working on large fishing vessels plying the expanses of the Caspian Sea.
"Getan"
In the 70s, it began to spread as a sport, and Evgeny Gvozdev began to get seriously interested in sailing and traveling. And since he was a poor man, he did not have money for his own yacht. Miraculously, the entertainer manages to get an old decommissioned whaleboat, from which Evgeny Alexandrovich built a small yacht in two years. The Makhachkala mechanic called his construction "Getan", hiding the names of people close to him in the abbreviation of the ship's name.
In 1979, Gvozdev on the "Getan" makes an unprecedented journey across the Caspian Sea along the Makhachkala-Baku route. After that, a small sailing ship with its captain made more than 50 trips across the Caspian both in summer and in winter, despite general skepticism and statements that the Getan pleasure boat is unlikely to sail somewhere. Yevgeny Gvozdev sailed and conceived an even more grandiose journey.
First trip around the world
It was 1991 and Evgeny Alexandrovich, at the age of 57, decides to go on a trip around the world. A simple Russian person did not have a suitable vessel, and Gvozdev beats the thresholds of the SOVMARKET shipbuilding company. He offers to make a trip to as a test yacht. And everything would be fine, but Kazakhstani manufacturers of micro-yachts made of fiberglass could not imagine how sailboats for family coastal recreation could make any trip, let alone sail into the open ocean, as Yevgeny Gvozdev had planned.
For half a year, the assertive traveler did not leave SOVMARKET alone, until the management allocated him a small pleasure yacht Lena. In addition, a three-year contract was signed, according to which Gvozdev was accepted into the company's staff as a tester. Needless to say, the ship handed over to the stubborn navigator was in no way suitable for circumnavigating the world, because it was equipped in accordance with standard projects and had only an additional layer of fiberglass laid on the bottom of the boat.
On July 7, 1992, Evgeny Gvozdev sets off on a long-awaited round-the-world trip on the Lena boat, 5.5 meters long. The difficult voyage ended in 1996, after 4 years and two weeks. This circumnavigation of the world was the first solo trip around the world on a "micro" class yacht in the history of mankind, which was successfully completed.
At sea on the yacht "Said"
Evgeny Gvozdev's stay on land did not last long - on May 17, 1999, he set off on a second trip around the world. This time the ship was even smaller than during the first circumnavigation of the world - its length was only 3.7 meters. Since Said Amirov, the city of Makhachkala, financed the incredible idea of Gvozdev, the yacht was named “Said” in honor of the sponsor, about which the traveler will regret more than once when there are problems with the Greek border guards who mistook him for a Muslim navigator.
After the successful completion of the round-the-world trip on August 9, 2003, Evgeny Gvozdev admits that there was a ship that was more suitable for long journeys, which Canadian sponsors offered him, but he, as a Russian person, could not accept the gift and give his accomplishments to another country.
One way or another, the journey was completed and the navigator had many years of ordeals, raging waves, now and then striving to throw the ship and even a meeting with Somali pirates, from which Evgeny Alexandrovich managed to get out alive and healthy.
Fatal Journey "Getan II"
In October 2008, 74-year-old Gvozdev embarked on his third round-the-world trip on the Getan II yacht. After passing the Black Sea, the Bosporus and reaching the coast, the traveler got in touch on December 1 and received no more messages from him.
On December 10, his body was found on the coast of Naples, with a gaping wound on his head, and his yacht with a broken mast was also found nearby. Presumably, the navigator got into a severe storm, as a result of which the yacht capsized, and its captain was fatally injured.
Evgeny Gvozdev is a bright personality in Russian yachting, he is a significant figure in this sport and the most outstanding yachtsman of recent decades. Even at an advanced age, without funds and support, he traveled, loved the sea to oblivion and dedicated not only his life to it - he found his death in it, like a real sailor.
