Tristan Jones, as much an adventurer and humanitarian as respected British author and sailor, died Wednesday of complications after a stroke. He was 71.
He had been living in Phuket, a Thai island where he settled nearly a decade ago. It was one of thousands of places Mr. Jones visited in the 450,000 miles he logged at sea.
Mr. Jones wrote 17 marine adventure books, two novels and numerous short stories and articles about his adventures. His tales recounted death-defying sagas as well as quiet moments.
He was born in 1924 aboard his father’s tramp steamer during a voyage around South America. He was raised ashore, mostly in Wales, but learned seamanship at 14 when his father got him a job on a cargo vessel. He joined the British Royal Navy at age 16, and served aboard several ships during World War II. Having survived three sinkings and a severe injury while in service after the war, Mr. Jones was discharged from the navy in 1952.
His yen for adventure and a life romanticized by the sea, Mr. Jones began to roam the world under sail. In a 1970 New York Times review of his book, “Saga of a Wayward Sailor,” A.B.C. Whipple said: “Scores of these salty wayfarers have written about their voyages, but of the many whose works I have read, Mr. Jones is the most articulate.”
He sailed across the Atlantic Ocean more than 20 times, and circumnavigated the globe nearly four times.
In “Ice,” he wrote about traveling in 1959 to the Arctic with his black Labrador, a three-legged, one-eyed dog that sailed with him in Cresswell, a converted lifeboat. And in “The Incredible Voyage,” written in 1977, he told about sailing farther up the Amazon River than anyone before him.
Despite having one leg amputated in 1983, the result of the post-war injury, and the other lost to gangrene a year ago, Mr. Jones did not stop sailing.
In an effort to encourage other disabled people, he set off from San Diego in the late 1980s in a 38-foot trimaran, Outward Leg. The three-hulled boat gave him the stable platform he felt he needed to manage alone at sea. After visiting 34 countries and five continents, Mr. Jones described the trip in his book “Improbable Voyage.”
Having ended the trip in Thailand, Mr. Jones decided to stay. He established the Atlantic Society, a non-profit group dedicated to helping disabled children. He spent his last years sailing with them, as recounted in “To Venture Further,” and teaching Thai children about navigation and sailing.
“Tristan was unique among all sailors of our era,” Bernadette Brennan Bernon, editor of Cruising World magazine, said.
“He was a gifted seaman, a rascal, a brilliant writer, a raconteur, and a man of incredible vision. Even without legs himself, he spent his last years teaching others how to walk tall.”
Mr. Jones was a fellow of England’s Royal Geographic Society and the Royal Institute of Navigation. But his disability, which made him a familiar sight on the streets in Bangkok with his special motorcycle, drew him to the people he felt needed him most.
“I want to show the world that disabled people can accomplish almost anything they set their hearts on,” he said. “I want them to feel proud of themselves, and not let themselves be shunted aside.”
