What does it take to sail around the world alone—without stopping, without outside assistance, and with no one else aboard to help when things go wrong?
Rich Wilson knows the answer. Twice, he completed the Vendée Globe, widely regarded as one of the most demanding competitions in sport. The race sends sailors more than 24,000 nautical miles around the world, through the punishing Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn, aboard high-performance 60-foot sailboats.
Rich first completed the Vendée Globe in 2009 at age 58. Eight years later, at 66, he returned to do it again—finishing nearly two weeks faster and becoming the oldest sailor at the time to complete the race.
In the inaugural episode of Third Quarter Badass, Rich joins Scott and Meg to discuss the physical and psychological realities of spending more than 100 days alone at sea. He shares how he prepared for extreme weather, exhaustion, injury, equipment failures, isolation, and the constant responsibility of keeping both himself and his boat moving forward.
Rich also explains why his expeditions have always been about something larger than personal achievement. Through his educational organization, sitesALIVE!, he used his voyages to bring real-world lessons in science, mathematics, geography, and decision-making into classrooms around the world.This is a conversation about calculated risk, self-reliance, lifelong ambition, and the courage to return to an enormous challenge—not despite getting older, but with the experience and perspective that come with it.
Rich Wilson is an American offshore sailor, educator, author, and adventurer who has completed two Vendée Globe races—the solo, nonstop, unassisted sailing race around the world.
In the 2008–2009 Vendée Globe, Rich sailedGreat American IIIfor more than 24,000 nautical miles, finishing ninth among 30 starters. At age 58, he was the oldest skipper in the fleet and became only the second American to complete the race.
Rich returned for the 2016–2017 Vendée Globe aboardGreat American IV. At 66, he was again the fleet’s oldest skipper and completed his second solo circumnavigation in approximately 107 days—nearly two weeks faster than his first attempt. He finished 13th and became, at that time, the oldest person ever to complete the Vendée Globe.
His sailing career also includes major ocean-racing victories and record-setting passages between San Francisco and Boston, New York and Melbourne, and Hong Kong and New York.
A former mathematics teacher with degrees from Harvard University, MIT, and Harvard Business School, Rich founded sitesALIVE!, an educational organization that connects students with real-world expeditions and adventures. Throughout his voyages, students followed his progress and explored lessons involving science, mathematics, geography, history, weather, technology, and human performance.
Rich is also the author ofRace France to France: Leave Antarctica to Starboard, which recounts his first Vendée Globe campaign and the extraordinary challenges of racing alone around the world.