Is the dystopian reality of late-stage Capitalism weighing you down? Sick of spending a minimum of 40 hours a week, a number that averages out to about 1/3 of your life, staring at a computer screen or busting your rump to make a dime while your boss makes a dollar off your labor? Then live vicariously through the journey of the brave 29-year-old who left his corporate job at Discount Tire, ditched his stable corporate life in Oregon, bought a sailboat, learned how to sail his boat, and is now on day 14 of his voyage sailing from Oregon to Hawaii.
Oliver Widger was diagnosed with Klippel-Feil syndrome, a condition that can sometimes result in paralysis because two or more of the bones in his neck are fused together. He told NBC News in a video interview that this diagnosis led him to ponder his mortality and come to the realization that the oppressive and all-consuming nature of a full-time job actually sucks, so he knew he had to change something. The state of his cervical spine means he can experience sudden paralysis at any moment, so he decided to take the leap of faith and pursue his dream of sailing across the Pacific, with his cat Phoenix on board.
15 days later
Prior to buying his 33-foot Com-Pac 33 sail boat and naming it Phoenix after his cat, Oliver didn’t have any experience sailing. He bought it last year in mid-May, then spent a bit over a month fixing it up, and took it out for its maiden on a river in Oregon on June 23. He spent several hundreds of hours out sailing before he sailed his boat to the Oregon coast in preparation for the voyage. After performing and documenting a series of extensive and expensive repairs on Phoenix, he set his sights on Hawaii and began his voyage on May 1.
Oliver posts daily updates about his adventure and lots of more candid story posts on his social media pages, and they recently went viral. When he first started vlogging his journey of purchasing the boat and learning how to sail and working on it, he had a little over 2,000 followers. He now has amassed well over a million followers on Instagram and over 800,000 followers on TikTok, and I think he deserves every one of them, especially since he’s funding his journey by posting content.
There’s something for everyone
Oliver posts tons of content — using Starlink, if you’re wondering — from daily updates about how his journey is going, to posting photos and videos of his sweet little kitty Phoenix being adorable, to discussing his diet at sea. If you go back in his feed, you can even watch all of the wrenching he had to complete prior to embarking on his voyage, and though we’re not rooting for mechanical issues, some of his daily updates include some technical repairs that he has to do along the way. It’s estimated that his trip will take anywhere between 14 and 21 days.
We are all wishing he and Phoenix a safe journey, and Oliver if you read this, I saw you mentioned selling a Lotus in order to help fund your expedition and I really want to know more about your car history, especially given that you spent 11 years working at a tire shop. Godspeed to you dude, from all of us here at Jalopnik.
