To remember him only as "the first Turk to sail around the world" would be unjust. What he truly did was make those who came after him believe it could be done.
In August 1965, Sadun Boro set out aboard his small sailing yacht, Kısmet, and earned the title of the first Turkish sailor to circle the globe. It is hard, from today, to grasp what that meant in those years. There was no GPS, no internet, no modern navigation equipment. Only a boat, a few charts, and sheer determination.
A Ten-and-a-Half-Metre Dream
Kısmet herself is a story of perseverance. The ten-and-a-half-metre ketch was laid down in 1963 at Athar Beşpınar's workshop in Salacak. Short of money, Boro took a higher-paying job in Tarsus to finish the boat; he solved the financing of the voyage itself by selling the journey to the Hürriyet newspaper as content.
A Wife, a Cat, an Ocean
But what made this voyage unforgettable was not its technical achievement — it was its crew. Boro was not alone: his German-born wife Oda, and Miço, the cat that joined them in the Canary Islands, were aboard. A man, a woman, and a cat — this little family crossing the oceans turned seafaring from a display of heroism into something human, warm, and shareable.
The voyage stretched from Istanbul to Gibraltar, from the Canaries to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal to the islands of the Pacific, and on to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, ending on 15 June 1968.
The Real Legacy: Pupa Yelken
Boro's true legacy began after his return. He first serialised the memories of his nearly three-year voyage in the newspaper, then gathered them into a book titled Pupa Yelken; these accounts were read with great interest and curiosity.
And here lies the heart of the legend: Pupa Yelken, published in 1969, opened the doors of imagination for thousands of young people. One of them, seventeen when he read the book, was Alim Sür. "I waited thirty-five years for my dream to come true," he said — and in 2003 made his own circumnavigation, following the path Boro had opened.
Why He Was Loved
People loved Sadun Boro for his courage, yes. But more than that, they loved him for his generosity. He did not keep what he had done to himself; he told it, wrote it, shared it. By showing how a dream becomes real, he gave others permission to dream.
Kısmet can be seen today at the Rahmi Koç Museum in Hasköy, Istanbul — but the real mark Boro left fits in no museum. It lives on the bow of every amateur sailor who puts to sea each year under the Turkish flag and says, "I can do it too."