I don’t know who named them swells. There’s nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
Hugo Vihlen
Listen to Sven’s interview on the Travel Grit podcast

I don’t know who named them swells. There’s nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
Hugo Vihlen
Listen to Sven’s interview on the Travel Grit podcast

Listen to the full Hugo Vihlen interview on the Travel Grit podcast.
Map is from his book The Stormy Voyage of Father’s Day.
For more sailing stories, check out Webb Chiles’ six circumnavigations.

At 62, Hugo Vihlen sailed across the Atlantic in Father’s Day—a boat just 5 feet 4 inches long. He hand-steered through a hurricane, ate quarter rations, and lost a kidney somewhere between Newfoundland and England. His record still stands 30+ years later.
Listen now.


Listen to Hugo’ Vihlen’s extraordinary story here on the Travel Grit podcast.