Robert Manry

Robert Neal Manry (b. Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, June 2, 1918 – d. Union City, Pennsylvania, February 21, 1971) was a copy editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer who in 1965 sailed from Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Falmouth, Cornwall, England,[1] in a tiny 13.5-foot (4.1 m) sailboat (an Old Town "Whitecap" built by the Old Town Canoe Co. of Old Town, Maine, which he had extensively modified for the voyage) named Tinkerbelle.

Manry later wrote about the voyage and its preparation in his book Tinkerbelle, in which the sailor expressed shock and surprise at the huge crowds and armada of small boats that greeted his arrival in Falmouth.

It is estimated that scores of journalists, the Royal Navy, a fleet of 300 boats as well as 50,000 people on shore (along with Falmouth's mayor, Sam Hooper) greeted Manry upon his landing ashore.

He then set out with his wife, son, daughter, German shepherd, and cat on a cruise from Cleveland, Ohio, through the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi river, through the Gulf to the Bahamas, up the east coast of the US and ultimately back to Cleveland.

Tinkerbelle is on display at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio.

Robert and Virginia Manry aboard Curlew
Robert and Virginia Manry aboard Curlew
Curlew in 2017
Tinkerbelle at the Western Reserve Historical Museum in 2017