In 1965, Robert M. Manry, a copy editor for the Cleveland
Plain Dealer, sailed from the United States to England in a
13-foot sailboat — 3,200 miles across the North Atlantic in a
boat so small you'd hesitate to take it out on Lake Michigan
or Long Island Sound as small-craft warnings were flying.
For 78 days Manry and his tiny 36-year-old sailboat battled
one of the toughest stretches of saltwater on earth.
Gales blew the boat on its side. Manry tried to nap during
the day and sailed at night so that he could try to avoid
being run down and chopped into kindling and hamburger
by great ocean-going steamers. On several occasions, he was
washed over the side in heavy seas. Each time he would
haul himself back aboard by a lifeline he kept tied to himself
in the boat. He suffered terrible hallucinations, the
result of having to take so many pep pills to stay awake during
the long nights.
Why? What made him do it? It wasn't publicity; he went
about the whole thing so quietly — practically no one knew
what he was up to. He thought no one would pay attention
to him, and that was fine with him.
The reason was that he had dreamed of sailing the Atlantic
ever since he had been a small boy. He bought the dinky old
boat for $250. He completely rebuilt her, taught himself navigation,
and practiced long-distance sailing on Lake Erie.
He told his wife the real reason for his embarking on so
incredible a journey in so vulnerable a craft. He said to her,
"There is a time when one must decide either to risk everything
to fulfill one's dreams or sit for the rest of one's life in
the backyard." Now this is why Mr. Manry went sailing
over the mountains of deep water in a boat only about twice
the size of your bathtub. This is why he sat in his tiny open
cockpit and weathered storms that caused the passengers to
clear the weather decks of giant ocean liners. He was fulfilling
a dream he'd carried in his heart since he'd been a small
boy.
As a result, offers for books and magazine articles poured
in to him. Cleveland gave him a hero's welcome, as did the
20,000 people who wildly cheered the successful end of his
voyage when he arrived in Falmouth, England. It's been
proposed to Congress that Manry's boat, Tinkerbelle, be
placed in the Smithsonian Institution alongside Charles
Lindbergh's plane, Spirit of St. Louis.
But all this fame and sudden stature in the eyes of the
world — this was not why he made the trip. It was because
he believes that there is a time when one must decide either
to risk everything to fulfill one's dreams or sit for the rest of
one's life in the backyard.
Courage, the courage to finally take one's life in one's own
hands and go after the big dream, has a way of making that
dream come true. It seems to open hidden doorways from
which good things begin to pour into one's life. But only after
we've made the journey in our own way. For Manry, at 47
years of age, it was sailing 3,200 miles of the North Atlantic.
Each of us must make his own voyage through darkness and
danger to the light that beacons in the distance. A journey to
fulfillment ... or sit in the backyard.
Learn more about Earl Nightingale and his all-time bestselling programs The Strangest Secret and Lead the Field.