Des Moines Register
When Tom Harkin was stationed in Japan in the 1960s, he and one of his fellow Navy pilots developed a plan to sail around the world.
They had a sailboat built that they named the Argo, an allusion to the mythological voyage of Jason and the Argonauts. Harkin charted a course to sail south from Japan to the Philippines, up the Strait of Malacca to India and around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, eventually ending up in the United States.
But that worldwide trip never became reality. Harkin and his fellow pilot went on some shorter sailing excursions, but once they left the Navy, they realized they didn’t have the time or the funds to take the Argo around the world.