First person to circumnavigate the Americas sailing non-stop solo

Matt Rutherford (USA) sailed the 8.2-m-long (27-ft) Albin Vega sailboat St Brendan single-handedly on a non-stop 43,576-km (27,077-mile) circumnavigation of North and South America starting on 13 June 2011 at Annapolis City Dock in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA, and finishing back where he started 310 days later on 18 April 2012. On 19 September 2011, he successfully negotiated the Northwest Passage – setting the record for the smallest boat to ever negotiate the notoriously dangerous Arctic Ocean route – and rounded the Cape Horn in January 2012.

Matt's boat was dubbed St Brendan in honour of a 6th-century explorer. The start-finish line was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Matt raised $79,393 for the disability charity Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating.