We are saddened to learn that Captain William “Bill” Pinkney died on August 31, 2023 at the age of 87. Captain Pinkney was the first Black man to sail solo around the world via the 5 Great Capes.
Captain Pinkney was in Atlanta, GA serving as an advisor for an upcoming documentary. He passed away on Thursday morning from injuries he suffered after falling down a flight of stairs a few days ago.
Captain Pinkney’s voyage featured the rounding of the five great capes including Cape Horn. The 27,000-mile circumnavigation took 22 months and ended on June 9, 1992. Throughout the trip, Pinkney sent footage back to Globe TV and communicated with some 30,000 school children. The finished production titled, “The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney,” won the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in children’s television programming. The film has aired on the Disney Channel, National Geographic, and PBS stations and is now available on YouTube.
Bill Pinkney also served as captain of the Amistad, the replica of the schooner known for a revolt of African captives in 1839. In January 1999, Pinkney and his crew on the Amistad set out to retrace the Middle Passage slave trade routes. Pinkney teamed up with PBS and several corporations to create a television special, and to bring teachers from across the country on board en route so that they could experience the trip firsthand.
In 2021, Captain Pinkney was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame with a Lifetime Achievement Award as an “Enthusiastic Trend Setter.”
Mystic Seaport Museum presented its 2022 America and the Sea Award to Captain Pinkney.
His children’s book, Sailing Commitment Around the World with Captain Bill Pinkney was published in 2022. The book aims to inspire readers from 8 to 12-years-old with stories, adventures, and sights of the voyage and the lessons Captain Bill learned at sea: dream big, persevere, and don’t be distracted by hurdles that come with moving forward.
Captain Pinkney also wrote an autobiography, As Long As it Takes: Meeting the Challenge in 2006.
Remembering Bill Pinkney, first African American to sail around the world solo
Thanks for the lousy news. Bill Pinkney was one cool guy. I was his guest board Amistad and he was mine when I skippered Sabino in 2006. Now Pinkney is dead and the Sabino is electric. Two cultural icons gone.
I was gifted with the opportunity to meet him years ago. May he find calm seas and friendly ports wherever his new voyage takes him.
I met captain Bill on Goree Island at the Slave House after flying into Dakar Senegal to join AMISTAD`S crew for her Atlantic crossing, there I saw him with a large group of mostly young un`s eating out of his hand as he explained “There are more in unpaid servitude today than there ever were in the days of slavery” `(black slavery` Bill was a hypnotic speaker a wonderful man. and a member of that select group The Cape Horners the IACH.
Chris
I don’t recall when exactly I first met Bill Pinckney but I know that we sat together at the 1994 ASTA conference in Toronto. This was the conference where the key note speaker was longtime Connecticut state legislator William R. ‘Bill’ Dyson, a long lean Black man whose Georgia birth was revealed by the cadences of his mellifluent accent. As he looked around the room his opening sentence was firm and to the point, “Ah see who’s heah…and ah see who’s not heah.” Maybe the room collectively squirmed a little; it was a sea of white faces. I was glad I was sitting with Bill.
Later at the same conference, Bill shared a nugget about fundraising: “You get money from corporate America in one of two ways, guilt or blackmail.” Within a year or two, Bill’s observation guided my strategy in winning a quarter of a million dollars from a wobbling corporate supporter. It was the blackmail part of his advice that I employed, but that’s a story for another time.
A few years later in February 2000, we found ourselves at OpSail New York’s Washington DC mini-conference and briefing for Tall Ship captains who would be bringing their ships to the forthcoming July 4th event in New York Harbor. There were dinners, meetings and briefings at Decatur House just by the White House. Part of the event was a private White House tour for the two dozen or so captains. Bill and I lagged at the end of the group. At the Green Room, we stopped to ponder a strange, seemingly out of place, painting on the far wall. It seemed to be mountains, painted in an almost child-like manner. As we laughed and joked between ourselves, a Secret Service agent approached (probably to move us along) and seeing what we were looking at, helpfully said, “Oh that’s a new Georgia O’Keefee Mrs. Clinton just added to the collection.” Bill and I laughed and agreed, we were not qualified art critics.
I guess Amistad and Rose did some additional port visits together. I know we anchored Rose in the Mystic River just off the shipyard as the new Amistad was launched in the early spring of 2000.
Our lives drifted apart as we grew older. An occasional email passed between us. Now Bill joins the ranks of friends lost who we will wish we had seen more of.
I met Bill layer in his life when he connected with the Chicago Maritime Museum to inspire young people with his adventures. Dream Big was his mantra and so many youngsters learned from him that there are no boundaries. I joined him when he was pronounced Hero of the Game at a 2022 Chicago White Sox game. A true Chicago treasure.