Solo Circumnavigator, Captain, Educator, All-American Athlete
By Elisa McKay
Headlines over the decades have obscured this fact: Teddy Seymour was the first African American man to sail around the world solo when he completed his voyage on June 19, 1987, in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Aboard Love Song, his Ericson 35, a full keel fiberglass MK I Alberg design, Seymour circumnavigated the Earth, with 12 stops. On February 24, 1986, Seymour began his trip from his home port of St. Croix. He finished his trip back home a year and a half later.
Teddy Seymour was born in Yonkers, NY, October 1, 1941. He passed away on April 11, 2023, in Eugene, Oregon. He was 81.
Teddy was the youngest of three children born to Ted and Grace Seymour. “We were each two years apart, all of us born in October, with our sister Carol being the oldest,” said Ruth Johnson, Teddy’s sister. “Money for three cakes in one month was a strain on the budget. However, my mother worked her magic and each of us had a cake on our birthday. We did not have a party. The cake was important to Ted, because he had, what we called, ‘a sweet tooth.’
“As we got older, we understood the sacrifices our mother made to keep food on the table,” Ruth said. “We saved our money to buy her a mirror for the living room — something she always wanted.”
“My brother Ted was an amazing man, whom I loved and respected. He was extraordinary. In my opinion, he deserves the title GOAT [greatest of all time] as the first African American to circumnavigate the world solo.”
Ted and his sisters lived across the street from the Otis Elevator factory. They could see the Palisades and the Hudson River from their third-floor apartment. Ted spent time with his companions fishing, jumping into the Hudson River, and daring each other to do more dangerous activities. Many of those activities were skills he used later during his solo voyage.
According to Ruth, Teddy described himself as someone who takes risks and overcomes challenges to accomplish a goal. He didn’t start out with the dream of sailing solo, she said, he just wanted to sail. Somehow, Teddy envisioned a dream that he would accomplish. “No one could fathom that this skinny little Black boy would accomplish this historical feat by circumnavigating the globe solo.”
“Our sister Carol was frequently called to the principal’s office to take Teddy home from school because he was acting out and kicked the teacher. Those behavioral patterns continued until the principal recognized his talent for running and assigned him to the track and cross-country coach, who became a mentor. One person can make a difference.”
Ted believed the coach saw his talent and was a major influence on him becoming a cross-country track star, bringing home the city championship for his school and winning an athletic scholarship to Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio.
Richard Austin of St. Croix was Teddy’s teammate at the HBCU [historically black college and university] Central State. “We enjoyed a wonderful relationship up until his passing,” he said. “Teddy and I were both on the Central State Cross Country National Collegiate Championship Team in 1962-1963. Teddy was an All-American, both in cross-country and distance track. Central State had tremendous track teams with coach David Youngblade.
“David had studied track techniques, and as a student, was hired as an assistant to the track coach. The track teams of the 80s still get together every year in October.”
At their 1965 college graduation ceremony, four classmates, in their dress white uniforms, received their commission in the U.S. Marine Corps, Austin recalled. Ted received the rank of captain.
Youngblade remembered Ted.
“Teddy was different,” he said. “He had his own way of doing things. He had a traumatic childhood in a segregated period. People don’t appreciate what my guys did in spite of all the obstacles. Somehow they got a college degree. To finish four years was quite an accomplishment. Our school was unique. It nurtured the environment. It says amazing things about my guys.
“All of the guys were grateful for the opportunities. At that time, it was a matter of segregation and finances. HBCUs were affordable. These kids had talent, structure, and discipline that prepared them for deadlines and time frames. It was a learning experience for all of us,” Youngblade said.
Teddy’s distance running prepared him for all that solitude on the boat, Youngblade said. “You’re out there churning out the miles … often out there by yourself. It’s as described in the short story, ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.’ There aren’t too many people who can call their own tune in life. Teddy found his calling and he was happy on his boat. That is great.”
In 1965, he began a seven-year stint in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving in Vietnam. Captain Seymour was a decorated combat veteran and the 31st Black officer commissioned.
After a managerial position at American Can Company in California, he graduated with a master’s degree in recreation administration from California State University. His teaching career started soon after. He loved teaching elementary school in California and later in the U.S.V.I.
Paul Barone tells the story of the relationship his late brother Charles had with Teddy. They knew each other in California and were running buddies. When Teddy yearned for a change of location, Charles invited him to vacation on St. Croix. He sailed from Southern California, through the Panama Canal, beginning his love for long distance sailing.
Teddy fell in love with St. Croix. He returned to the West Coast, mapped out a plan, and sailed back to the island to make it his home, taking a job as a primary school teacher at the Charles H. Emanuel Elementary School.
John Jones, a fellow teacher, remembers:
“Ted was really good with the kids, which I think was a result of his background as a Marine, a runner, and a sailor. He knew how to discipline his students. He was a positive influence and a good role model for his students, being Black and a male teaching in early childhood education.”
Greg Johnson referred to Ted as his mentor and the reason for his success as a runner. “We met in 1981 and worked out together,” he said. “The workouts were grueling in speed and endurance. He was ten years older than me. When we raced, I would come out ‘looking the part’ in my Nike shoes and tights. Ted would appear in a T-shirt with holes and black, baggy shorts. We all chuckled at his image. Ted would finish first.”
It was on St. Croix in the late 1980s that Gary Jett first met Ted. “I was working at Howard University,” Jett said. “A friend and I went to St. Croix to take a sailing course at the Annapolis Sailing School in Christiansted. There were four-five students in the course on a 50-foot sailboat with Ted as our captain. We spent a week sailing through the BVIs.
“We learned many things that week from Ted. After that course, I was hooked on sailing the islands. Whenever possible during the cold months, I would come down to St. Croix and we would sail the BVI on his boat, Love Song, and on his next boat, Scrimshaw. Over the years, a few friends and I would charter boats from companies in the BVI, down island, Grenada, Martinique, and other islands. We would always bring Ted aboard as our captain.”
Teddy was certified by sailing authorities as being the 161st person to make the circumnavigation solo, but he received little recognition, other than mention in a few sailing magazines.
On June 18, 1992, the Bay State Banner of Boston, Massachusetts, wrote:
“Lacking corporate sponsors and media coverage, Seymour’s 16-month journey was in every bit a solo effort. ‘The easy part was sailing around the world,’ said the 51-year-old Seymour in a telephone interview with the Banner. ‘I’ve almost lost my life on many occasions.’”
For his historic voyage, Teddy was recognized and received awards by the Joshua Slocum Society (the official certifier of solo circumnavigators); Museum of Yachting Hall of Fame in Newport, RI; Seamen’s Church Institute of New York; and a proclamation of recognition by the legislature of the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York, and New Jersey.
On March 23, 2019, Teddy’s longtime friend and running buddy Wallace Williams read the VI Daily News headline, “He Sailed the Seven Seas,” about Black circumnavigator William Pinkney. The article touted Pinkney as being the first Black man to sail around the world solo. Williams wrote a letter to the editor with details of Teddy’s solo voyage in 1986 that the VI Daily News published April 9, 2019.
Williams, an Olympic distance runner, and Teddy had a long history together. “I met him as a runner, a sailor, a teacher, and as a very pragmatic, goal-oriented person. We used to talk quite a bit. He was a forward artillery observer in the Marines, who called in air strikes, which was obviously a tough situation for him. We went to movies often to see some of the military war films. Ted looked at them from a military/technical standpoint — not that he was proud to have been in Vietnam. That was a very tough subject for Ted … it really was.
“I have no recollections of him talking about the solo sail. It might have been his goal, but he didn’t advertise it. He worked two or three jobs, and when he got it together he researched.” As head librarian of the Florence Williams Library in St. Croix, Wallace would order maps for him when he didn’t find what he wanted in the general collection.
There were Ham radio guys on St. Croix who could pick up signals during his solo sail. Ted dropped cards to Wallace when he made stops. “The stories he told about his stops were unbelievable,” Wallace said. There were tough times in the Mediterranean because of the weather, but Ted was told to sail around South Africa because of Apartheid.
Teddy’s story of an encounter with an orca was told to interviewer Richard King (seahistory.org/sea-history-for-kids/orca).
Wallace received a call from one of the Ham radio guys that Ted was on the other side of Buck Island. Ted sailed home to St. Croix the next day.
A version of this story originally appeared in the St. Thomas Source and is excerpted with permission. All images are courtesy of St. Thomas Source.
