The first Black man of any nation to solo-circumnavigate the world via all the Capes, William “Bill” Pinkney died on August 31, 2023 at the age of 87 in Atlanta, GA.

There are about 234 recorded single-handed sailors who have taken their vessels around the world. Of that number there are only six who have taken their vessels around the five Southernmost Capes, or points of land. Of those six there is only one African Descendant who has taken his vessel around those last points of solid land that forms our earth and that man is the 165th sailor to do it, Captain William Pinkney and his vessel was a heavily built production cutter rigged sloop he named Commitment.
Those five most Southern Capes are the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Cape Leeuwin in Australia, Tasmania’s Southwest Cape, New Zealand’s Stewart Island Cape and the dreaded Cape Horn.