You know the expression "time is money." The converse is also true: if you've got time, you can save a lot of money. Hart's new engine, for example, was a 22 year old Volvo diesel that had never been used. How's that? A guy who had been building a boat in his Portland backyard had installed the Volvo, but died before the boat was completed. When somebody else bought the project, they removed the brand new Volvo in favor of a Yanmar diesel. The patient Hart was the lucky beneficiary.

When it comes to cruising gear, Hart is a minimalist. Hooligan is equipped with a GPS, depthsounder. a VHF, and an Icom receiver - but no Ham or SSB radio, no radar, and no liferaft. Hart doesn't carry an EPIRB either. 'The way I look at It," he explains, "I'm the one who decides to go sailing on the ocean, so it's up to me to get myself back. For example, my prop shaft started falling out of my boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I had no choice but to dive overboard and save it, because you have to do what you have to do. And I made it safely to Sri Lanka, so that was that. My attitude is that nobody who goes to sea should ever expect to be rescued. I might feel different if I were responsible for somebody besides myself, but I'm not."

Hart is adamant about his most valuable piece of equipment. "My Monitor self-steering vane."

The singlehanded sailor is the first to admit that his "minimalist cruising" hero was Don Cutty, also of San Diego and of some number of years ago. "Cutty had a Columbia Sabre, which is a 5.5 racing boat with a tiny cabin," says Hart. "He had a very simple and inexpensive boat, he didn't have an engine. He hardly had any gear at all, and he had no money. But he ate what the locals ate and seemed to have more than the cruisers with the big boats and all the gear. By sailing from California to Massachusetts on a shoestring and having such a great time, he demonstrated to me that you didn't have to spend $150,000 for a boat and $50,000 for electronics to go ocean cruising."

Hart started his inadvertent circumnavigation by sailing to the Marshall and Caroline Islands, which he found very enjoyable, and the Philippines, which was to be his favorite stop of all. "I usually do most of my own boatwork," he says, "but in the Philippines I could get excellent workers for $6 a day. This was at a place 25 miles north of Cebu City which is known as the gun-making center of the Philippines. Using nothing but a drill press and hand tools, these guys sit under trees all day long creating handmade knock-offs of Uzi machine guns, Smith & Wesson pistols and rifles - whatever you want. All made by hand. One of my workers carried a Smith & Wesson 44 magnum - that was chambered out to fire a 5.56 millimeter bullet - which is what's used in M- l6s. He offered to make me one for $80."

Hart continued on to Singapore and Sri Lanka - and in both places realized how dangerous it could be trying to sail across the shipping lanes that connect the oil rich Middle East with the industrialized Far East. "Approaching Singapore. I was almost run down four times in one afternoon - in broad daylight. I also had a difficult time on my way from Sri Lanka

While Hart had some good experiences in Africa, he considers it the worst place he visited. "All along the East Coast of Africa the paperwork was a big hassle and all the officials had their hands out. And while in Mombassa, two guys jumped me. We rolled around in the dirt for awhile, but they didn't get anything. The officials were much more efficient in South Africa and didn't ask for bribes. Nonetheless, I was jumped by three hoodlums in the middle of the day on a main street in downtown Durban. They got away with my wallet and stuff."

It was also along the dangerous coast of Africa that Hart experienced his worst weather. "My Cascade and I got beat up pretty badly by a big storm off of Richard's Bay. The top of the main pulled off the mast, the boom broke, and I ran out of fuel. But you do what you have to do, and I limped into Durban with a double-reefed loose-footed main. Incidentally, this was the only really bad weather I had on the entire trip, as other than this storm, I never saw more than 30 knots of wind."

Harts haul-out in Durban was enough to restore his faith in humanity. The haulout was $30, the bottom paint was $60 and he paid $20 to have it put on. Where else could you get a 29-footer hauled and painted for $110 U.S.? A local metalworker came by when he heard Hart needed a new boom. The guy had a used boom, and after careful measuring and a lot of custom work on a new gooseneck, sold it to Hart for less than $200.

Hart was able to live inexpensively because the extremely hospitable South African yacht clubs usually offered free berthing. In addition, he was getting asked out to dinner nearly every night. "I still get letters from friends in South Africa," says Hart.

It's not that It was ever costing the singlehander much to cruise. "I was getting by on $600 to $800 a month - everything included. One way I saved lots of money over other cruisers is that I don't smoke or drink. Since I didn't indulge in those things, I could buy the very best food."