Tribute to Pole who sailed solo around the world
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
29.04.2019 12:28
An exhibition in tribute to Leonid Teliga, the first Pole to singlehandedly circumnavigate the globe, is on in the Baltic city of Gdańsk.
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay
It was 50 years ago, on April 30, 1969, that Teliga completed his journey after two years and two months at sea.
The odyssey included an unprecedented feat which saw Teliga covering 13,500 nautical miles from Fiji to Dakar and spending 165 days on board his 9.8-metre-long yacht without calling at any port.
Born in 1917, Teliga fought, and was wounded, when Poland was attacked by Germany in September 1939.
In 1942 he joined the Polish Army in the West and with it he arrived in Britain. He served as a gunner in Squadron 300, a Polish World War II bomber unit which fought alongside Britain’s Royal Air Force.
After returning to Poland in 1947, Teliga worked as a skipper, sailing instructor, journalist and writer.
He died on May 21, 1970, less than a year after fulfilling his life-long dream of a solo around-the-world trip. He was 53.
The exhibition, which also documents other historic yachting expeditions, is being staged at the Gdańsk branch of the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences until May 18.
(mk/pk)