With the sky as his “quilt” and the “sea” as his home, Zhai Mo has finally found his mission in life after more than 20 years of living at sea.

Zhai Mo’s life as a sailor began at the age of 32, when he was still a painter. And his interest in sailing was aroused by the words of a Norwegian navigator while he was organizing a painting exhibition in New Zealand.

“As long as there is a boat, you can go anywhere you want, the boat is your home, and this blue planet belongs only to you”. Impressed by these words, Zhai Mo bought the first sailboat in his life, and a man who couldn’t swim, who couldn’t even figure out GPS, compass and charts, began his exploration of sailing.

In 2007, at the age of 39, Zhai Mo began his journey to sail around the world. He set sail from Rizhao, China, and spent two and a half years sailing along the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, completing the feat of sailing around the world on his self-drive sailboat.

In 2022, Zhai Mo sailed a sailing boat on a “non-stop circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean”, which lasted 504 days and covered a total distance of more than 28,000 nautical miles, setting a new record for Chinese sailing.

Sailing has now become a way of life for Zhai Mo. He hopes that through his sailing experience, more people will pay attention to the ocean. At the same time, he has also found his mission - to change the public’s knowledge and understanding of the ocean and sailing through education.

In this issue of NINGDO Interview, we interviewed Mr Zhai Mo,who is known as the “modern version of Zheng He”. The “first person sailed around the world on a single-handed unpowered sailing yacht in China”.

What does the ocean mean to you? How did you love the sea stronger and stronger?

I remember the Norwegian navigator I met in New Zealand said that as long as you had a boat, you could go anywhere without a visa, and you didn’t have to go through the hassle of getting to the port and getting a “landing permit”.

I am a person who aspires and seeks freedom. The world of the sea is full of freedom, and when I learnt about and contact with boats, I thought I had found the vehicle to pursue freedom and to  free myself. That’s how I got into the arms of the ocean.

Sailing is the freest way to travel. The ocean is indeed full of perils and I have had countless brushes with death, but eventually conquered myself. To take something to the extreme, it must require love. And the top level of love for a thing is to devote your life to it.

And when you take this to a certain level, it affects another part of the people. This love will also slowly turn into a responsibility and a mission, and it is this sense of mission that makes the love grow stronger.

What do you think is the connection between the ocean and the development of the country?

Attaching importance to the oceans is an inevitable choice and development path for the rise of the world’s great nations. Since the beginning of the fifteenth century, mankind has found that the oceans are not only a source of fish and salt, but also a source of political, economic and military social value.

As the Silk Road was monopolized by the Ottoman Empire, European countries decided to take the sea route to get in touch with East and South Asia in order to do business and make money. Spain and Portugal, the pioneers of navigation on the Iberian Peninsula, sailed their worn-out ships, first to investigate the local customs and climate, and then to plunder resources, open up markets, occupy ports, and even trafficking in human beings, killing and setting fires to earn a lot of profit, and then use the money to make more ships and make more money, and so on and so forth.

Gradually, the power of the Europeans expanded little by little. After the baptism of the winds and tides of the outer seas, all kinds of plundered wealth, turned these worn-out ships, into a huge battleship. Through constant seafaring campaigns and the opening of new shipping routes, Europeans gradually mapped out the entire globe. Countless routes crisscrossed the world, forming a large network of development centred on Europe, until the Industrial Revolution put Europe ahead of the world.

However, the great Portuguese navigator, Da Gama, left as a record that a Chinese fleet of 800 ships reached Ghori, India, 70 years before himself. There were so many people in this flotilla that the population of the flotilla itself was much greater than that of any city between India and China, and greater than that of any city in India. The number, tonnage, size, and manning of the ships of the European navigators in those days could not be compared with that of Zheng He’s boat division.

China, with its long coastline, vast jurisdictional waters and rich marine resources, is a truly great maritime nation. The development of the oceans and seas has a bearing on the survival of the nation, and even more so on the rise and fall of the country. Regrettably, China has historically favoured the land over the sea and lacked a strategic understanding of the sea. Although the creation of a prosperous and incomparable agricultural civilization, but can not hide the state and the people of the ocean awareness of the weak, resulting in the Chinese nation missed the awakening of marine awareness, the opportunity of the great development of the sea.

Nowadays, the ocean is already a new engine of economic growth for various countries, and the role of ocean development in the pattern of national economic development and opening up to the outside world has become more important, and its position in the maintenance of national sovereignty and security has also become more prominent. Looking at the world development trend, we can learn that the rise of great powers must pay attention to the sea.

From your perspective, what is the current security environment and situation outside our developmental ocean?

As a rapidly rising power like China, an important concern for maritime security now lies in how to safeguard its maritime rights and interests.

For the time being, the main security situation we face is the existence of sovereignty disputes over about one third of the maritime area, such as the Diaoyu Islands and the Nansha Islands. Some neighbouring countries, with the convenience of their geographic location, have illegally occupied some of China’s islands and reefs for their own use, creating trouble and seriously threatening the integrity of China’s maritime sovereignty. In addition, the current state of China’s marine ecology is not encouraging, and the problems of marine pollution and ecological imbalance need to be resolved urgently.

In addition to this, as we face the oceans, we also need to address a number of problems, such as the low rate of marine resource utilization, the relatively backward approach and technology in the development of some resources, which increase the difficulty and capital investment in marine development, and also exacerbate pollution, leading to further deterioration of the marine environment.

At the same time, the majority of our people still have a tendency to favour land over sea, and are relatively ignorant of the idea of maritime power and maritime awareness. In addition, there is a relative lack of education and training on maritime awareness in China, so that the people do not have a good channel to understand the basic knowledge of the sea. In my opinion, we should also place the construction of the navy and the consolidation of sea defence in the most prominent position.

However, China’s strong land-based economy can provide a strong “backing” for the oceans, and there is no serious threat to China’s maritime security. We are following the path of peaceful development and win-win cooperation in building a strong maritime State. We have also put forward the concept of a “community of maritime destiny”, expanding this diplomatic concept from land security to maritime security, and from near-Earth security to global security.

Previously sailing with you was for the challenge of life, so what is your goal at this stage of your life?

After more and more international exchanges in the field of navigation, I found that the popularization and education of nautical knowledge in China is too scarce. There is still a considerable gap between our understanding and perception of the spirit of the sea and that of the developed Western maritime countries.

I believe that if China wants to become a maritime power, it must vigorously develop maritime science education. Therefore, I am now committed to building schools and bases. I have set up maritime training centers in Beijing and Hainan, which are dedicated to cultivating young seafarers who are interested, willing to explore, and rich in the spirit of challenge. The school in Beijing mainly focuses on popular navigation education for young people, while the school in Hainan focuses on adult training.

I also hope to organize a variety of sailing and navigation training activities through the organization of popular sailing education activities. Starting from young people, I hope to gradually popularize sailing among the general public and fundamentally change the public’s perception of the spirit of sailing, so that I can make a modest contribution to the development of China’s sailing career.

At present, there is still a lack of nautical talents and nautical training schools in China. I plan to open a few more schools in different cities in the future to meet the needs of more people and to contribute more to the popularization of maritime science in China.

What does your ideal maritime education look like? What kind of knowledge you want to be taught to people? And what kind of man do you hope to raise them to be?

In some ways, mankind’s knowledge of nature is still quite shallow . Humans can climb the highest mountain peaks, but they can’t get to the deepest ocean floor.

In fact, most people nowadays do have too narrow a perception of seafaring. Cultivating nautical talents is of great strategic significance to China’s development and use of the oceans, consolidation of sea defence and safeguarding of the country’s maritime rights and interests.

Sailing is a sport that requires “tacit co-operation” with nature, a sport that uses the power of wind and water to enjoy the infinite pleasure of sailing a boat on the sea. Mariners must learn to give full play to their subjective initiative, bravely face all kinds of problems encountered in the process of sailing, so that they can become more resilient, calm, cheerful and self-confident. They need to be well versed in astronomy, geography, natural sciences, learning ability, decision-making, self-confidence, concentration, creativity, risk management and goal management.

When with more and more people, with the knowledge of navigation, with the spirit of the sea, willing to run to the sea, then the spirit of the whole nation is different. When these forces are invested in nautical activities, then the country’s marine development will be greatly developed, and at the same time, our comprehensive national strength will also be enhanced. 

(The pictures in the article are provided by the interviewee)