Howard Blackburn

Despite losing his fingers and toes to frostbite while lost at sea in a dory in 1883, he prospered as a Gloucester, Massachusetts businessman.

Yearning for adventure, he twice sailed single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean, overcoming his disability and setting record times for the crossing.

Not content with this, he organised an expedition to the Klondike to join the gold rush; rather than go overland, he and his group sailed there, via Cape Horn.

After the quest for gold failed, Blackburn turned his attention to a new challenge — to sail single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean.

This had been done before, by Alfred "Centennial" Johnson in 1876, and Joshua Slocum had completed a single-handed circumnavigation in 1898; but for a man with no fingers to undertake such a voyage would be quite an accomplishment.

Vincent Cove that at high tide came to the back door of the tavern has since been filled in but the building is largely unchanged.