In 1932, when Oskar Speck’s small business went bankrupt, he got into his kayak and set out on what would become an epic seven-and-a-half year journey. He ended up paddling for 30,000 miles, all the way from Germany to Australia. When he set out from his ruined country, Germany had only a small army and Adolf Hitler had not yet come to power. He died in 1995 at age 88, and his story was never fully told. Now, there is a small maritime museum that has carved out a place for the saga of Speck’s unbelievable journey. Jeffrey Mellefont, now retired from the museum and an international yachtsman who has sailed much of Speck’s route, told Vanity Fair, “Speck’s voyage simply dumbfounds me. Sailing, I could always heave to in storms or standoff a dangerous coast, get some rest and try again at daybreak. Speck had to get it right the first time, every time.”
Speck, who was five feet ten inches and weighed about 140 pounds, couldn’t swim, and even though he traveled by boat, he never tried to learn. He battled sharks and hostile locals, as well as malaria. At one point, his boat was stolen and he needed to bribe the police to get it back. When he arrived in Australia, he was flying his country’s new national flag, a swastika. But Australian policemen strode up to Speck and shook his hand, congratulated him on the achievement, and had him arrested. They concluded he was not a spy or a Nazi, and he was released.
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