Evans Starzinger and Beth Leonard are among the leading blue water cruising sailors today.
During the 1990s they completed a circumnavigation aboard a Shannon 37' ketch, using the typical tropical route but including Cape Hope. During the 2000s they have taken a custom built Van De Stadt designed 47' aluminum fractional sloop on a second circumnavigation, above the Arctic Circle and around all five great capes - Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, South West Cape, Tasmania, and South West Cape, New Zealand. This included a 9,000-mile, 59-day, non-stop leg sailing east in the Southern Ocean from Puerto Williams to Fremantle. In 2007, they completed a second 65,000-mile circumnavigation, east about, under all the great capes and above the Arctic Circle. In 2008, they cruised around Patagonia, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, and then up the Atlantic in 2009 to St Helena, the Caribbean and back to Chesapeake Bay to return to the same slip from which they started the voyage on Hawk. Since the completion of these two circumnavigations they have been back and forth to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia several times.
Leonard and Starzinger have won a number of noteworthy awards for their cruising, including:
Before their first voyage, they both worked for McKinsey & Company, a corporate strategy consulting firm. Between the two voyages, Starzinger was a vice president at General Electric, running an IT business unit and Leonard wrote three books. Starzinger has been the CEO of two start-ups (North Thin Ply Technology and Augmented Reality Labs) and the offshore safety regulations advisor on two US sailing accident investigation panels. Leonard is the editor of Seaworthy magazine and a director of technical services at BoatUS.