- Jake Harrigan completed a solo 5,000-mile journey around the eastern United States on a sailboat he rebuilt himself after being diagnosed with cancer at age 24.
For 295 days, a 30-foot sailboat was Jake Harrigan’s home.
The Toledo native returned to Harbor View Yacht Club in Oregon on July 1 after completing America’s Great Loop, a nearly 5,000-mile solo journey by water around the eastern United States.
Harrigan set sail in September aboard a 1983 Pearson 303 sailboat that he spent years rebuilding himself. He stripped it down to the hull, rewired and replumbed it, and replaced its diesel engine with an electric motor powered by lithium batteries, solar panels and a diesel generator…