Profile

The Amazing Story of Minoru Saito

Veteran ocean sailboat racer Minoru Saito has participated three times in the most prestigious and grueling race in the sailing world, the single-handed, around-the-globe competition originally called the BOC Challenge, then Around Alone, and is newly renamed the 5-Oceans Race which commences in 2006.
On the way, he has become perhaps the most experienced blue-water yachtsman from Japan with transoceanic voyages totaling more than 240,000 nautical miles. His upcoming challenge race, which he has dubbed "Challenge-7" (see accompanying article) will become the seventh time he has circled the globe with only the wind and the sea for companions.

Minoru is quite well known among European and American sailing enthusiasts, but far less so in Japan where attention has yet to build for the sport of sailing. In fact, Saito won special recognition in Charleston, SC as "The Spirit of Around Alone" at the closing ceremony of the Sixth Around Alone Race in 1999. Milestones related to Saito and his often-tested boat - Shuten-Doji II (in Japanese, "Drunkard's Son") are described in his book "Kotou" ("Fighting Alone") published by Kadokawa Shoten in 2003.
Already past age 60, he competed and completed, while other top sailors were forced to retire, three separate times in around-the-world single-handed races, while clocking another three circumnavigations as he went to, or returned from, race starting points. For this dogged persistence, and his cheerful "why not?" attitude, his indomitable spirit has been recognized and praised in yacht racing circles all over the world.

■Milestones

January 7, 1934	Born in Asakusa, downtown Tokyo.
1948～1967	Engaged in mountain climbing, eventually becoming the first to climb Tanigawa-dake mountain in Japan.
1973	Began serious sailing. Participated in the Toba Pearl Race (Aburatsubo - Toba) and other Japan-area races.
1986	Bought a 43-ft. sailing boat in Australia. Participated in the Melbourne - Osaka Double-Handed Race, but was forced to retire due to rigging failure.
1988	Sailing from Japan to Sydney, surviving a typhoon and two cyclones on the way.
1989	Participated in Around Australia Single-Handed Race. Suffered a heart attack in Darwin and was forced to retire.
1990	Participated in Auckland - Fukuoka Race. (Finished third in class.)
1991	Acquired a 50-ft blue-water cruiser, which was modified into a racing boat. Sailed 12,000 nautical miles alone from Sydney to Newport, Rhode Island, which helped to qualify for entry in the BOC Challenge.
1990‐1991	Participated in the Third BOC Challenge. Finished third in class (197 days and 20 hours).
1994	Single-handedly sailed from Japan, crossing the Pacific Ocean, through the Panama Canal, and up the U.S. East Coast to Charleston, SC (starting point for the BOC Challenge).
1994‐1995	Participated in the Fourth BOC Challenge (his second), finishing sixth in class. After the race, returned to Japan single-handed, departing the U.S. East Coast trans-Atlantic to England, then through the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, thus effectively completing two global circumnavigations in one continuous trip.
1997	Single-handed from Japan to Australia, South Africa and England to join the Fifth BOC Challenge.
1998	Participated and finished in Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Ocean Race. (Falmouth - Charleston, S.C.)
1998‐1999	Participated in the fifth running of the BOC Challenge, under its new name of "Around Alone." For Saito, this was his third global race, which at age 65 made him the eldest of the challengers. He completed the race in 203 days, finishing fifth in his class.
2001	On returning to Japan, his ports of call included Cape Town, South Africa, and Tasmania; this trip went down in the log book as Saito's sixth circumnavigation.
2002‐2003	Retired from race "Around Alone"2002/3 , he voluntary supported HQ of Around Alone Race and donated The Shuten-dohji Trophy to the winner of Class II.
2003	Published his racing autobiography "Kotou" (Fighting Alone), in which Saito vividly describes his experiences on the sea and explained what drives him back to the sea time after time.