William Willis

William Willis (September 8, 1893 – July 1968) was an American sailor and writer who is famous due to his solo rafting expeditions across oceans. Early years Willis became a sailor at 15, leaving his home in Hamburg, Germany, to sail around Cape Horn. A few days after New Years, 1938 Willis rented a room in New York City from a French immigrant named Madame Carnot. Her son, Bernard Carnot, had been sent to Devil's Island in 1922 for a murder that he did not commit. Out of compassion and a sense of adventure, Willis set out to the penal colony to effect Bernard Carnot's escape, which he eventually accomplished. During his first solo expedition in 1954 from South America to American Samoa, he sailed 6,700 miles – 2,200 miles farther than did Thor Heyerdahl on Kon-Tiki. His raft was named "Seven Little Sisters" and was crewed by himself, his parrot, and cat. Willis was age 61 at the time of this voyage. He selected the seven great balsa tree trunks which were used in the raft (hence the name Seven Little Sisters) himself at a balsa forest on a great inland estate. His wife saw him off at the dockside in Callao, Peru. In an incident with the raft in the docks the day before sailing, Willis suffered a hernia, but nonetheless set sail as planned.