Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston (born 17 March 1939) is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also named the ISAF Yachtsman of the Year award. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race. Life Early life Knox-Johnston was born in Putney in London. His birth was registered in Wandsworth, in 1939. He was the eldest child of David R Knox-Johnston (1910-1970) and Elizabeth Magill née Cree (1908-1977), who were married in Tring, in 1937. Knox-Johnston was educated at the Berkhamsted boys' school. From 1957 to 1968, he served in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Naval Reserve. In 1965, he sailed his William Atkins design ketch Suhaili from Bombay to England. Her design is based on the Norwegian sailing lifeboat designs of Colin Archer. Due to a lack of money he had to interrupt his voyage for work in South Africa as Master of a coaster and stevedoring and was only able to complete it in 1967. In 1968, he was one of nine sailors who attempted to achieve the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. He was the third sailor to start the race, and the only one to complete the voyage. Family In early 1962, in Cambridge, he married Suzanne (Sue) Singer, whom he had known from the age of eight; they had one daughter, Sara, who was born in Bombay whilst he was at sea. His wife left him when he proposed taking her and the child back to England in his new boat Suhaili, and they were divorced in 1967. However, in 1972 they remarried in Winchester, and now have five grandchildren, Florence, Oscar, Xavier, Ralph, and Valentine. Sue died in 2003. Circumnavigation of the Earth On 14 June 1968 Knox-Johnston left Falmouth in his 32-foot (9.8-metre) boat Suhaili, one of the smallest boats to enter the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Despite losing his self-steering gear off Australia, he rounded Cape Horn on 17 January 1969, 20 days before his closest competitor Bernard Moitessier. Moitessier had sailed from Plymouth more than two months after Knox-Johnston, but he