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Sailing Scene Profile

Mr. Hawaii Five-0 

No, not the police task force or the hip TV show, but it is the nickname that has preceded Brian “BJ” Caldwell as one of Hawaii’s ambassadors to sailing. Fittingly, a couple years ago Brian just completed his 50th Pacific Ocean Crossing between Hawaii and California. From a young age Brian grew up on his parent’s yacht sailing the South Pacific getting homeschooled, and had a chance to explore the outdoors and the subjects of life a lot of children today miss out on. He has seen far away atolls and island nations that most can’t pronounce and rarely get a chance to experience- Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Palmyra, Marquesas, Fiji, Tahiti, and the list goes on. He is no stranger to the open ocean having sailed more miles than most have dreamed. 

Brian was the first person under the age of 21 to ever solo circumnavigate the Globe. He departed Hawaii Yacht Club in the Ala Wai Harbor and returned back to Waikiki in 1991 having penned his name in the Guinness Book of World Records. Since then, the record has fallen but that hasn’t stopped BJ from sailing all over the world. Brian has sailed the 7 seas from the Artic to the Southern Ocean- to the ends of the earth and everywhere in between. The equivalent of summitting Everest and the rest of the Himalayan Mountain range without oxygen.

His approach to sailing is very calculated yet at the same time a shoot from the hip approach. “You just have to do what feels right,” says BJ. He is a quirky, humble gentlemen with a wild imagination. Out on the open ocean there is a lot of downtime between navigating, driving, and sail changes. So BJ often peels open a salt encrusted book and lets the pages turn themselves. But after so many accomplishments, where does one go from here and what stands left to achieve?

Brian is gearing up for a race around the World on his Swan 42 called the Global Solo Challenge. This is a solo circumnavigation race, nonstop and unassisted if possible. In order to make it, the boat must be stout enough to survive the storms that traverse the lower latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere and have all the self-sufficiencies to support life without land. He will make his own fresh water from the Ocean through a reverse osmosis process, and carry all the spare gear he thinks he may need in case of equipment failures- so he can make repairs and continue on the journey. The only thing that will be limited in supply is food and the space to store it. He will be on a diet consisting mostly of vacuum-packed freeze dried MRE’s to save space and stay fresh. 

Getting to the starting line can be the hardest part of the race, as he will need to take his boat from California to Spain while simultaneously refitting and prepping everything. But we will cover his journey to the start and provide ways the sailing community can support him in the future. Hawaii wishes you fair winds and following seas on your journey!

See you on the water,

Sean Doyle

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