A Mechanic Falls man who disappeared four decades ago while on a solo worldwide sailing dare will be honored by a new bridge in his hometown.
Bill Dunlop, 41, arrived in England in 1982 after sailing in a virtual bathtub from Portland.
Dunlop had successfully sailed in the smallest boat ever – at nine feet not much larger than a bathtub – to have crossed the Atlantic.
He had set sail from Portland in a craft so small he could barely stand up in it.
But a year later, setting his sights on circumnavigating the world, he set out from the Cook Islands, 3,000 miles east of Australia, and was never seen again.
Dunlop first made the trans-Atlantic trip in 1980 in a 35-foot sloop and sailed the same boat back and forth across the Bermuda Triangle in 1981 “just for the hell of it.”
Two years before his disappearance, Dunlop completed the trans-Atlantic crossing in his fiberglass “Wind’s Will,” setting a world record for a solo eastbound crossing in the smallest boat.
He had sailed alone from Portland, Maine to Falmouth, England, in just over two months.
Sailing in the days before widespread use of GPS, he used only a $16 sextant for navigation. His boat had a radio, but no backup engine.
That death-defying journey included a gale that was so severe he had to harness himself to the tiny boat’s 12-foot mast in order to avoid being swept overboard.
Back in Maine, he was honored with a parade in his hometown of Mechanic Falls on Sept. 25, 1982.
Then governor, Joe Brennan, turned out to give a speech.
Hungry for a new challenge, the former truck driver set his sights on the second adventure: circumnavigating the world in Wind’s Will.
He departed from Portland on July 31, 1983, and sailed down the Atlantic coast, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific.
Along the way, he ran aground in the Bahamas during a storm.
A year later, he pulled into Aitutaki in the Cook Islands for repairs.
On June 23, 1984, Dunlop’s birthday, he left the Cook Islands bound for Australia on the final Pacific Ocean leg of his 27,000-mile voyage.
He is believed to have drowned in a hurricane-force storm two days after leaving the islands.
His website, put up by his sister Donna Thompson, quoted Dunlop before he began his journey as saying, “I’d rather die out there trying than not do it at all.”
Dunlop was literally fearless. He combined that trait with a love of gnarly adventure and lived as though there were no tomorrow.
In Dunlop’s life there was someone special who tolerated his dangerous wanderlust – his wife Pam.
Pam let Bill be a boy when he needed to be.
It clearly wasn’t easy for her, but she loved him, so she bravely put up with it.
Maine bridge No. 2540, which carries Elm Street over the Little Androscoggin River in Mechanic Falls, will be dedicated as the “Bill Dunlop Memorial Bridge” once renovation work on the span is completed.
The legislative document allowing the bridge to be renamed, LD 2239 set the stage for bridge work to begin this fall.
Though Pam Dunlop’s name won’t be on the plaque, she deserves a big forever hug from everyone who knew her husband.
Pam never gave up hope he was still alive.
In late 1984 she said she and her husband never talked much about the prospect of his not coming back.
“He didn’t think that would happen, and we didn’t dwell on it,” she said. “We looked on the positive side. I told him that if he got lost, I’d come looking for him.”
Pam tried to organize search missions but to no avail.
She said she believed a note found in a bottle on a remote Australian beach in October 1984 was written by her husband.
The unsigned note claimed that its writer was shipwrecked on a deserted island.
In 2009, a quarter-century after Dunlop went missing, Thompson said, “It sure does not seem that my brother has been gone that long.” It’s now been 41 years.
State highway officials last week awarded the bridge maintenance job to CPM Constructors of Freeport.
