Instrumentless circumnavigator passes

MARVIN CREAMER, A sailor who PerforMed a seemingly miraculous circumnavigation in the mid-1980s, has crossed the bar for the last time.

A former geography professor at Rowan University in New Jersey, Creamer died on August 12, at age 104. Born in 1916, Creamer was long associated with Glassboro State College in New Jersey (later renamed to Rowan). He received his undergraduate degree from the school and later founded the Department of Geography there in 1970.

Creamer was also a sailor and melded his interests in geography and sailing to dive deep into the science and art of navigation alike. He had long been interested in the observational navigation techniques — famously used, for example, by Polynesian navigators who made long voyages in the Pacific without sextant, timepiece or compass. Creamer mastered these techniques so well that he tried them on passages in the Atlantic. He made several transatlantic voyages and became confident he could do something even bigger.