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Globe Star left Cape May December 21, 1982, sailed to South
Africa, Australia, New Zealand, via Cape Horn to the Falkland Islands,
and returned to Cape May on May 17, 1984. Eleven and a half of the
eighteen months were spent at sea.
The GLOBE STAR completed a successful circumnavigation of the globe, skippered by
Professor Marvin Creamer of New Jersey. Creamer navigated without the use of
compass, sextant or electronic instruments! He eschewed even a wristwatch, but took an hourglass
for changes of watch! Actually, a sextant, clock, compass and radio
were sealed in a locker below deck in event of an emergency, but these remained sealed for the entire journey, which was
attested to and notarized by proper inspections.
The boat was equipped with a transmitter which sent signals at regular intervals so that the Coast
Guard knew of the boat's whereabouts. When it malfunctioned, the media reported
the crew missing. After the Globe Star reached port, Creamer called
his wife, who had more confidence in her husband's abilities than in electronics!
The voyage went by way of Dakar - West Africa, Cape Town - South Africa, on to Australia, New Zealand, Cape Horn,
the Falkland Islands and along the South American coastline northward by Cape Verdes and Bermuda, finally ending
at the point of departure. Marvin returned to Cape May on May 17, 1984.
During his circumnavigation, Marvin gleaned much additional knowledge about navigating by nature alone. He
discovered that he could depend entirely on the sun, moon and stars -- if they were
visible. In overcast and stormy weather, he studied currents and wind patterns. But he also
found that the composition and color of the sea, cloud formations, the horizon,
drifting objects and different types of birds or insects were valuable sources of information.
Creamer obtained his latitudes by identifying a star with known
declination that happened to transit through his zenith, directly overhead.
After a lot of practice, he was just as aware of his longitude as was an eighteenth-century mariner,
so he had only to sail down a parallel of latitude for landfall.
On one occasion a squeaking hatch served as a navigational aid. Marvin had
lost direction in a prolonged dead calm. With no visible stars and currents to
guide him, he could little more than sit and wait. When the wind finally began
to blow, a crew member moved the hatch cover, which made a loud squeaking
noise. Deductive reasoning told Marvin that dry air coming off the
Antarctic had caused the squeak. Moist air would have lubricated the track.
Following the direction of the dry air, Marvin was able to get back on course.
On May 13, 1984, after 510 days at sea, Marvin Creamer neared the end of a voyage which had begun as
a fantasy in his teenage mind. A normal house fly which landed on the GLOBE STAR hinted that he was about to become the first person in recorded history to circumnavigate the
globe without instruments. Victory was near!
Four days after the fly’s visit, following a night of wrestling with heavy
sails, the exhausted skipper had just crawled into his bunk when he was
awakened by repeated shouts. Overhead, a U.S. Coast Guard chopper circled the
GLOBE STAR. Off the starboard bow, Creamer spotted a red marker, the “F”
marker just 15 miles south of Cape May. At 1 p.m. on May 17, the GLOBE STAR
entered Cape May harbor having logged 30,000 miles with 17 months at sea. Creamer
wrote in his record of the journey, "It has
been a jolly romp!"
Using only environmental clues, Creamer had sailed around the globe in
a grand feat of record-breaking proportions. Creamer proved what he always
believed — that it is possible to circumnavigate the globe in a small boat without
instruments.
The soft-spoken 68-year-old retired geography professor became an
American hero much admired by those he met during his adventure. Creamer and his
crew members docked at Capetown, South Africa; Hobart and Sydney, Australia; Whangora,
New Zealand; and Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Christmas 1983 was spent
in the Falklands where they unknowingly made port at a top secret British
military installation. “We were the talk of the Royal Air Force,” Creamer
writes. “They treated us like kings, but they thought we were crazy.”
“What we demonstrated,” he concludes, “is that information taken from the
sea and sky can be used for fairly safe navigation. How far pre-Columbians
sailed on the world’s oceans we do not know; however, it is my hope that the
GLOBE STAR voyage will provide researchers with a basis for assuming that
long-distance navigation without instruments is not only possible, but could
have been done with a fair degree of confidence and accuracy.”
Creamer has always been a doer as well as a dreamer.
Today, Creamer resides in Pine Knoll Shores,
N.C., Although Creamer still has a 17 foot sailboat, he generally stays on dry land.
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Known articles by and about Creamer and his voyage around the world
(See Links Page):
Rowan professors Denis Mercier and Paul VonHoltz collaborated in editing and setting Creamer's account
of the voyage in book form, titled The Globe Star Voyage, a
171-page autobiographical story including pictures and newspaper articles. This has unfortunately
never been published.
A two-page article about Creamer's circumnavigation appeared in the July-August
1984 issue of New Jersey Outdoors Magazine.
An article by Creamer appeared in the Ocean Navigator July/August 1985, pages 30-35,
published by Navigator Publishing Company, of 18 Danforth St., Portland, ME 04101. Written by
Greg Walsh, the article was titled, A Natural Navigator, Marvin Creamer is the
world's premier no-instruments voyager.
Creamer gave a speech at the Institute of
Navigation annual meeting, Annapolis, MD in June, 1985, entitled The
First Circumnavigation Without Instruments: A Small Step Backward
Speeches by Creamer to the Delaware Valley Geographical Association, Treadway
Inn, West Chester, Pennsylvania:
November 1981: A Geographer’s Odyssey—Sailing the Seas by Stars Alone
November 1984: Voyage of the Globestar—A Non-Instrument Circumnavigation
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