# List of sailors

This list of sailors includes any seagoing person who does not qualify for the list of sea captains. It includes both professional and amateur sailors.

## Actors

* Raymond Bailey, American actor, Milburn Drysdale, on The Beverly Hillbillies
* Rupert Davies, British actor, title role on the BBC's Maigret
* Peter Falk, American actor, Columbo
* James Garner, American actor, Jim Rockford on The Rockford Files
* Sterling Hayden, American actor and author, Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove
* Jack Lord, American actor, Steve McGarret on Hawaii Five-O
* Carroll O'Connor, American actor, Archie Bunker on All in the Family
* Denver Pyle, American actor, Uncle Jesse Duke on The Dukes of Hazzard
* George Sewell, English actor, Frank Cottam on The Detectives; steward
* Frederick Treves, much loved English character actor with over a hundred credits in theatre, television, and film
* Clint Walker, American actor, Cheyenne Bodie on Cheyenne
* Jack Warden, American actor, Emmy Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated

## Comedians

* Dave Broadfoot, Canadian comedian
* George Roper, English stand-up comedian best known for work on television series The Comedians

## Explorers

* Erik the Red
* Bjorn Ironside
* Leif Erikson
* Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi
* James Cook, sub-Antarctic, Pacific, North America, apprenticed on a Whitby collier
* Ernest Shackleton. Antarctic, was third mate in the Union-Castle Line

## Labor leaders

* Joseph Curran, American labor leader
* Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–1882), wrote Two Years Before the Mast
* Andrew Furuseth (1854–1938), merchant seaman and labour leader
* Shannon J. Wall, American merchant seaman and labor leader

## Maritime industry

* Captain John Bury, Canadian mariner involved in standardising international buoyage
* Harry McNish, Scottish carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition
* Jeremiah O'Brien, captain of the privateer Unity in the first battle of the Revolutionary War
* Herbert Pitman, third officer of the Titanic
* John Wallace Thomas, Newfoundland captain made Commander of the Order of the British Empire for actions during a Luftwaffe attack
* Louis Ernest Sola, Federal Maritime Commissioner and yachtsman

## Military

* Kingsmill Bates, British Distinguished Service Cross recipient
* Philip Bent, Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross
* David Broadfoot, Scottish recipient of the George Cross
* Lionel Crabb, British Royal Navy frogman who vanished during a reconnaissance mission first in 1956
* Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin, French Baron and rear admiral of the Navy; was a helmsman early in his career
* Peter Horsley, British Air Marshal
* Lawrence Joel, Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient
* John Paul Jones, American naval officer
* "Yank" Levy, Canadian soldier, military instructor and author of a manual on guerrilla warfare
* Charles Andrew MacGillivary, Canadian Medal of Honor recipient
* Kim Malthe-Bruun, member of the Danish resistance movement
* Thomas McClelland, American naval officer
* George S. Patton, American general
* George H. O'Brien Jr., Medal of Honor recipient in Korean War
* Arthur Phillip, British naval officer, colonial administrator, Governor of New South Wales, and founder of the city of Sydney
* William Sanders, New Zealander recipient of the Victoria Cross
* Miguel Grau Seminario, Peruvian naval officer and hero of the Naval Battle of Angamos
* John Young, naval officer in American Revolutionary War

## Musicians and composers

* Ken Colyer, British jazz trumpeter
* Suezenne Fordham, American jazz pianist
* Eric Griffiths, Welsh guitarist in the original lineup of The Quarry Men
* Woody Guthrie, musician and songwriter, wrote "This Land Is Your Land"
* Chick Henderson, English singer in the 1930s and 1940s, "Begin the Beguine"
* Cisco Houston, American folk singer
* Ferlin Husky, American country-pop singer, hit number one with "Wings of a Dove"
* Nelson Riddle, American bandleader, arranger and orchestrator, "C'mon... Get Happy"
* Francisco Gabilondo Soler, Mexican composer of children's songs, "Cri-Cri, El Grillito Cantor"
* Dave Van Ronk, American folk singer nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street"
* Ted Weems, American bandleader and musician, directed the Merchant Marine Band
* Russ Conway, English pianist

## Notorious

* William Colepaugh, Nazi spy in World War II
* George Hennard, American mass murderer who claimed twenty-three victims at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas
* Fritz Sauckel, Nazi war criminal
* Duncan Scott-Ford, British merchant seaman hanged for treachery in World War II
* Perry Smith, made famous in Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood

## Politics and activism

* April Ashley, transgender rights activist
* Alvin Baldus, former Democratic member of Congress
* Traian Băsescu, President of Romania, inaugurated in 2004
* Gordon Canfield, Republican congressman from New Jersey
* Alfonso J. Cervantes, forty-third Mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri
* Frederick Arthur Cobb, Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom
* Mark Croucher, Director of Communications for the UK Independence Party, pub landlord, journalist, former radio officer
* Arthur Davidson, British Labour Party Member of Parliament
* Jim Folsom, Democratic Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama
* Ian Glachan, Australian politician, member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
* Brian Haw, British peace activist
* Harry Haywood, a leading African American member of both the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)
* John Horner, British firefighter, trade unionist and politician
* Piet de Jong, Prime Minister of the Netherlands
* Wayne Mapp, New Zealand politician
* Alfred von Niezychowski, Polish noble, German Count, author and lecturer, and American politician
* Jack O'Dell, prominent African-American member of the U.S. civil rights movement
* Albert Owen, Welsh politician, Labour Party MP for Ynys Môn
* John Prescott, British Labour Party politician, Deputy Prime Minister, First Secretary of State and Member of Parliament, a steward and waiter
* Joseph Resnick, Democratic congressman from New York
* Montfort Stokes, Democratic Senator
* John S. Watson, New Jersey politician
* Terry Wynn, retired Labour Party Member of the European Parliament for North West England
* Zoltan Istvan, American journalist, political activist, and futurist

## Producers

* John Clark, English actor, director, producer, and ex-husband of Lynn Redgrave
* John Kenley, former American theatrical producer
* Oliver Stone, three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter

## Radio industry

* Dave Cash, British disk jockey
* James Redmond, pioneer of modern public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom
* Tommy Vance, British pop radio broadcaster

## Science, engineering, and architecture

* Patrick Young Alexander, British aeronautical pioneer
* Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, Scottish physician, geographer zoologist and botanist
* Allan V. Cox, American chemist and geologist
* Norman Jaffe, American architect
* D. Holmes Morton, American physician specializing in genetic disorders

## Social scientists

* Douglass Cecil North, American economist and Nobel Prize winner

## Sports

* Samuel Albrecht, Brazilian swimmer
* Bobby Atherton, Welsh international footballer
* Jim Bagby Jr., major-league baseball pitcher
* Fred Blackburn, English footballer and coach
* Drew Bundini Brown, Muhammad Ali's assistant trainer and cornerman
* Dan Devine, American football coach
* Joe Gold, bodybuilding and fitness guru of Gold's Gym
* Cornelius Johnson, American Olympic medal-winning high jumper
* Charlie Keller, left fielder in Major League Baseball
* Frank Sinkwich, American footballer, won 1942 Heisman Trophy, 1944 NFL MVP
* Agostino Straulino (1914–2004), Olympic champion and Italian admiral
* Jim Thorpe, American Olympic athlete
* Henk de Velde, Dutch seafarer known for his long solo voyages around the world
* Matthew Webb, first person to swim the English Channel without the use of artificial aid

## Visual arts

* Richard Avedon, American photographer
* Johnny Craig, American comic book artist
* Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist artist
* Rockwell Kent, American painter
* Joseph Stanley Kozlowski, American AB, portrait and watercolor artist
* James Nachtwey, American photojournalist and war photographer
* George Rodger, British photojournalist noted for work in Africa and death camps at Bergen-Belsen
* Ken Russell, iconoclastic English film director
* Ernie Schroeder, American comic book artist
* Haskell Wexler, American Academy Award-winning cinematographer
* Wally Wood, American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher

## Writers and publishers

* John Arthur Barry, Australian journalist and author
* Peter Baynham, Welsh screenwriter; Academy Award-nominated; co-writer of Borat
* John Blackburn, British novelist
* Nathaniel Bowditch, author, The American Practical Navigator
* E. S. Campbell, American author, broadcaster and radio officer
* A. Bertram Chandler, Australian science fiction author of over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction
* Brian Cleeve, English writer and popular TV broadcaster
* E. E. Cowper, English novelist
* Frank Cowper, English yachtsman and author
* Olaudah Equiano, former slave turned abolitionist and writer of African descent
* Clare Francis, British novelist
* Allen Ginsberg, poet, "Howl", "Kaddish"
* David Hackworth, retired United States Army colonel and military journalist
* Richard Henry Dana Jr., American author, Two Years Before the Mast
* John L. Hess, American journalist
* Herbert Huncke, American beat generation figure
* Bob Kaufman, American Beat poet and surrealist
* Nikos Kavvadias, Greek poet
* Jack Kerouac, American author, On The Road
* James Lennox Kerr, Scottish socialist author noted for his children's stories
* Jack London, American author, Call of the Wild
* Veeresh Malik, Indian businessman and writer
* John Masefield, O.M., LL.D., Poet Laureate, sailing ship apprentice
* Kevin McClory, Irish screenwriter, producer, and director, Never Say Never Again
* Herman Melville, American author, Moby Dick
* Charles Muñoz, American poet, novelist, publisher, and radio officer
* Alun Owen, British screenwriter, wrote The Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night
* Michael Page, British Australian novelist and author of the Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were
* Donn Pearce, author of Cool Hand Luke
* Dudley Pope, British writer of both nautical fiction and history
* Richard Scott Prather, American mystery novelist
* Otto Scott, American journalist and author
* Hubert Selby Jr., American author
* Joshua Slocum (1848–1909?), first single-handed circumnavigation of the world, 1895-1898
* Gary Snyder, American poet
* Lyle Stuart, controversial American publisher
* Derek Turner, Irish magazine editor and freelance journalist
* Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens), author
* Nedd Willard (1926–2018), writer and journalist
* Charles Williams, writer of hardboiled crime fiction
* Robin Wilson, American science fiction author and university president
* Bernard Wolfe, American fiction writer

## Other

* Popeye (created 1929) cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar
* Crispus Attucks (1723–1770), victim of the Boston Massacre
* Peter Blake (1944–2001), winner of the Whitbread Round the World Race, the America's Cup and the Jules Verne Trophy
* Chay Blyth (born 1940), completed the first westward single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the world, 1971
* Jean-Charles de Borda (1733–1799), scientist and engineer working at sea
* William Harvey Carney (1842–1908), Civil War soldier, previously a sailor
* Russ Chauvenet (1920–2003), one of the founders of science fiction fandom; amateur sailor
* Sir Francis Chichester, completed the first single-handed circumnavigation of the world with just one port of call, 1966-1967
* Granville Conway, public servant, Presidential Medal for Merit recipient
* Harvey Cox, preeminent theologian and professor at Harvard Divinity School
* Donald Crowhurst, lost at sea during the Golden Globe race
* James Dougherty, first husband of Marilyn Monroe
* Michael Eavis, founder of the Glastonbury Festival
* David Fasold, salvage expert, self-proclaimed "arkologist"
* Charles Henry George Howard, 20th Earl of Suffolk, 13th Earl of Berkshire, apprentice on windjammer Mount Stewart
* Robin Knox-Johnston (born 1939), completed the first single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the world, 1968-1969
* Sadie O. Horton, spent World War II working aboard a coastwise U.S. Merchant Marine barge, and posthumously received official veteran's status for her wartime service, becoming the first recorded female Merchant Marine veteran of World War II
* Samuel Leech (1798–1848), wrote of experiences in both the Royal Navy and US Navy
* Freddie Lennon, father of English musician John Lennon
* Ellen MacArthur, British sailor and round-the-world record holder
* Doris Miller (1919–1943), cook who fought back at Pearl Harbor
* Abdul Awal Mintoo, Bengali businessman and former President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry
* Bernard Motissier (1925–1994), French yachtsman and author of books about his voyages and sailing
* Jacob Nagle (1762–1841), well-traveled seaman who wrote a journal
* Altineu Pires (?-?), Brazilian navigation teacher, sailing author
* Jure Šterk (1937–2009), Slovenian round-the-world sailor and author of books about his voyages and sailing
* Joseph D. Stewart, Vice Admiral, Superintendent of the United States Merchant Marine Academy
* Paul Teutul Sr., American television personality
* Jordan Weisman, American game designer