Bill Pinkney (sailor)
William Deltoris Pinkney III (September 15, 1935 – August 31, 2023) was an American sailor and executive. In 1992, he became the first African American to sail around the world solo via the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. Early life
William Deltoris Pinkney III was born on September 15, 1935, named after his father and maternal grandfather, and was raised on the South Side of Chicago. His parents, Marion Henderson and William Pinkney Sr., divorced when he was young. He attended Tilden Technical High School and graduated in 1954. Pinckney considered himself Jewish starting in childhood and converted to Judaism as an adult. Navy and later career
Pinkney joined the United States Navy in 1956, serving as a hospital corpsman. He left the Navy in 1964, and moved to Puerto Rico for a few years, where he learned how to sail. After returning to the mainland in 1961, Pinkney worked as a marketing manager for Revlon and later the Johnson Products Company. He started planning to sail around the world in 1985 after being laid off from his job at the Department of Human Services and fundraised throughout the late 1980s. He originally planned to circumnavigate via the Panama and Suez canals; in 1987, Teddy Seymour became the first African American to circumnavigate solo via that route. Pinkney was persuaded by Robin Knox-Johnston, who in 1969 had become the first man to complete a solo nonstop circumnavigation, to travel the southern capes instead and to become the first Black man to do so. Voyage
Pinkney's voyage around the world lasted 22 months. He traveled approximately . He departed from Boston on August 5, 1990, sailing first to Bermuda, then along the eastern South American coastline, across the Atlantic Ocean to Cape Town, South Africa, across the Indian Ocean to Hobart, Tasmania, across the South Pacific Ocean, around Cape Horn, and up the eastern South American coastline, finally ending up back in Boston. Pinkney sailed on a Valiant 47, a 47-foot cutter named The Commitment. The expedition cost around $1 million. On June 9, 1992, he arrived at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston Harbor where he was greeted by over 1,000 school students and 100 officers from the Navy, Coast Guard, and National Park Service. The story of his trip was told in the documentary The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney, based on Pinkney's own footage. The film won a 1992 Peabody Award. He also wrote a children's book about his experiences called Captain Bill Pinkney's Journey. Amistad replica 

As a trustee of the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, Pinkney oversaw the building of the replica of the Amistad, of which he served as the first captain from 2000 to 2002. As captain, he took a group of teachers to Africa as part of a trip that traced the route of the Middle Passage crossing from Senegal to the Americas. Death
Captain Pinkney was in Atlanta, Georgia serving as a technical advisor for an upcoming research expedition. Separate from and not related to the research project, he suffered a fall and passed away days later as a result of his injuries. Captain Bill Pinkney died on August 31, 2023 at the age of 87. He is survived by his wife, Migdalia Vachier Pinkney, as well as his sister Naomi Pinkney, his daughter Angela Walton, and two grandchildren. Awards and honors
Pinkney was named Chicago Yacht Club’s Yachtsman of the Year in 1992. In 1999, he was named one of the Chicagoans of the Year by Chicago magazine. Pinkney is a member of the National Sailing Hall of Fame. He was awarded The America and the Sea Award by Mystic Seaport Museum on October 26, 2022. Pinkney received honorary degrees from Becker College, Southern Connecticut State University, and Massachusetts Maritime Academy. References

External links
 Capt. William "Bill" Pinkney, interview archive with The HistoryMakers (African American video oral history archive)
 1998 interview with Bill Pinkney by Victoria Lautman for WBEZ radio

1935 births
2023 deaths
20th-century African-American people
20th-century converts to Judaism
21st-century African-American people
Accidental deaths from falls
Accidental deaths in Georgia (U.S. state)
African-American sailors
African-American United States Navy personnel
People from Chicago
Single-handed circumnavigating sailors
United States Navy corpsmen