Celebrated Circumnavigator Joins Ha-Ha

While reviewing background info on this year’s Baja Ha-Ha entrants, William (Scott) Piper III’s stats jumped off the page at us. In fact, when we read that he’d logged more than 180,000 sea miles, we thought it must have been a typo.

We’re a little embarrassed to admit that we’d never heard of Piper before. But a Google search quickly revealed that this modest Floridian was awarded the Cruising Club of America’s prestigious Blue Water Award just last year, thus joining the ranks of such sailing luminaries as Harry Pidgeon, Eric and Susan Hiscock, John Guzzwell, Francis Chichester, Eric Tabarly, Bernard Moitessier, Hal Roth, Pete Goss and Karen Thorndike, to name but a few. Yeah, it’s quite a club. And Piper richly deserved to be included.

An orthopedic surgeon by trade, Piper has circumnavigated four times by various routes — including the Southern Ocean and high Pacific latitudes — aboard Pipe Dream VI, a J/40, and Pipe Dream IX, a J/160. He has crossed the Atlantic eight times and the Indian and Pacific Oceans four times each.

During his travels, he was often called upon to put his medical skills to work, especially during emergency situations in remote locations. His early working career included a stint in the Far East during the Vietnam War.

As we always say, all sorts of sailors are attracted to Latitude‘s annual San Diego-to-Cabo San Lucas rally, and we’re thrilled to have this distinguished salt illustrate that point yet again. Read more about Piper and other entrants in the October edition of the magazine.