‘A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner,’ says the English proverb. This lovely little saying is quite apt for a story that I discovered in the papers of Henry Scripps and Carolyn Farr Booth.
In a folder of correspondence, I came across two letters to Henry Booth from a man named Brad Storm, a Bloomfield teenager who had sailed around the world solo in a boat, a journey which took him four years to complete. While there is little documentation on the story, it’s possible to piece together an inspiring tale of challenge, adventure, tenacity, and discovery.
An article in The Detroit News on October 24, 1983 (p. 3) tells us that Storm had planned the trip since he was 13. After working jobs and saving throughout his high school years, he bought a 27-foot cruising sloop named Dream Weaver. The initial voyage started disastrously in a shipwreck only three days after setting sail, on Friday, October 13th, 1979. Storm, determined and wiser, set sail again and successfully voyaged through Pacific Islands, Oceana, Australia (where he stayed for a year), the Indian Ocean, Mauritius, South Africa, the Caribbean, and home via the Panama Canal.
In the article, Storm describes the marvels and the struggles of his voyage, and recounts that his only companionship was a supply of classic books. As he deliberates his future voyages, he is certain of one revision: “Man wasn’t meant to sail alone. I’ll always go with a crew now so there’s someone to share the experience with.”
From Booth’s diary and History for 1983, I learned that upon reading about Storm’s journey in the newspaper, Booth phoned him up and invited him to visit Cranbrook. A couple of days later, Storm came to talk about his experience to Dr. Jeffrey Welch’s English class at Cranbrook School. He also spent time with Alice and Warren Booth (third child and second son of George and Ellen).
The first letter to Booth is dated December 1983, and Storm had sailed again in search of a place to settle and look to the future. He was writing from the coast of New Zealand to thank Booth for a poem, Inspired by a Chap Named Storm, that he had sent to Storm’s parents. Storm was considering how he could help and inspire others from the lessons he had learned through his experience and said that it was meaningful to him to receive Booth’s poem.
The second letter describes how Storm had arrived in Honolulu in June 1984 and planned to stay there to write about his journey and to pursue higher education. He writes,
“I’ve spent so much time at sea alone it’s terrific with friends all around me and other things I’ve denied myself for so long. Just walking to the shop and buying a pint of milk is still a pleasure. The sea showed me not to take things for granted so I’m not and enjoying life immensely… Writing is a very strange and new voyage to me with an unknown end, but I’m enjoying the challenge it’s bringing me. A lot of new challenges in a new life, I wake every morning enjoying the anticipation of the new day.”
Letter from Brad Storm to Henry Scripps Booth, July 2, 1984
Like Booth, I felt inspired by this chap named Storm, whose persistence in following his dream led to a great discovery. In searching the world for life, he discovered his relationship to it, giving him a most wonderful gift—the gift of taking pleasure in simple things.
–Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
Cranbrook Kitchen Sink 
Have you googled Brad Storm New Zealand?
Cruising World – Jan – Feb 1981 – Page 120 – Google Books Resulthttps://books.google.com › books
Vol. 7, No. 1 · Magazine
They sailed from Auckland, New Zealand and called at the Cook, … singlehandedly sailed by 21-year-old Brad Storm, arrived in Mauritius after a ..
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