Kang Dong-suk (adventurer)
South Korean yachtsman
Kang Dong-suk (Korean: 강동석; born 25 May 1969; a.k.a. Donald Kang) is a yachtsman and adventurer from South Korea.
On 8 June 1997, he became the first Korean to sail around the world single-handedly, when he completed a circumnavigation on a 30-foot (9.2-meter) sailboat Pioneer 2 (선구자 2), covering over 70,000 kilometers in 3 years and 5 months. In 1991, he completed the first single-handed sailing voyage of the Pacific by a Korean in his first sailboat Pioneer 1 (선구자 1), a 29-foot (8.7-meter) boat, travelling the distance of 11,700 kilometers in 7 months. After arriving in Korea, he donated the Pioneer 1 to the Korea Naval Academy.
The Republic of Korea Navy, in recognition of Kang's sailing achievements, awarded him the first ever Honorary Member of the Republic of Korea Navy (명예해군) title. In November 1997, following his return from the sailing solo-circumnavigation, South Korean President Kim Young-sam invited Kang to the Blue House and awarded him the "New Korean" (신한국인) title.
In 1999, as a member of a Korean climbing team, he attempted to summit Broad Peak in the Himalayas, the 12th highest mountain in the world. The team had to turn back when a climbing member fell to his death.
After his return from the Himalayas, Kang graduated from UCLA and worked at Deloitte as a public accountant.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kang Dong-suk (adventurer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.