Yesterday was a day to remember Bill Dunlop of Mechanic Falls.

Sept. 25 was declared Bill Dunlop Day in the mid-1980s by Gov. Joseph Brennan.

About 22 years ago, Dunlop disappeared in his tiny sailboat as he attempted to cross the Pacific Ocean. It was to be the first leg of a solo round-the-world trip in a sailboat no bigger than a family car.

It was tiny, but fitted with a deep and heavy keel. If he had succeeded, his accomplishment would have marked the first time a boat that small had made the circumnavigation.

What happened to Dunlop remains a mystery. News reports hailed his start and followed his progress.

All we know now is that on June 23, 1984, after making it that far, he left the Cook Islands in his tiny boat bound for Australia on the final leg of his journey across the Pacific. After too many days with no sightings of the lone sailor, a search effort was made. The searchers failed to locate Dunlop, and the director of the search eventually declared that Dunlop and “Wind’s Will” were probably victims of a storm in the South Pacific.

Since then, memories of his remarkable effort and tragic loss have faded.

How did a quiet man from the small inland town of Mechanic Falls come to step out onto the world stage of celebrity in such an unexpected manner?

Then and now, people can’t help asking if Dunlop’s attempt was foolhardy. Was it realistic to think that one man in a tiny sailboat could circle the world?

Just look at the man and his actual accomplishments, and you have to acknowledge that it was possible. He knew what he was doing. He knew the risks, but he was determined to accept the challenge.

He had already been involved in a similar venture that was a reasonable test for the epic voyage. Between June 1 and Aug. 23, 1980, he single-handedly sailed his 35-foot sloop “Enchantress” from Portland to Falmouth, England, and back.

On his return, members of the Taylor Pond Yacht Club invited Dunlop to speak at a meeting, and they made him an honorary member. According to Helen Andrews in her history of the club, “Now and Then at Taylor Pond,” Dunlop tried his hand at racing a turnabout (a small sailboat) on the pond the next summer. When he returned from a 1981 voyage to the Bermuda Triangle, “He spoke again to the yacht-clubbers and told of his dream of a tiny unborn sailboat taking shape in his imagination,” Andrews wrote.

She said Dunlop chose “Wind’s Will” for the boat’s name. It came from a Longfellow poem, but it also was short enough to fit on the transom of a tiny boat.

The christening of “Wind’s Will” took place at Taylor Pond, miles from the salt water of the Atlantic. The wet, cold spring of 1982 made the earth soggy and the boat’s trailer couldn’t be backed to the pond to float the boat. Andrews said that meant the “pond came to boat” as Greg Shea, club commodore that year, ceremoniously threw a pan full of Taylor Pond water over “Wind’s Will.”

Dunlop’s mother “took aim with a bottle of imported champagne” and smashed it “dead center on the stem” for the benefit of TV cameras and visiting dignitaries.

It was a gray day on June 13, 1982, at DiMillo’s Marina in Portland Harbor, when Dunlop – then 40 years old – set sail in his small craft with a destination of Falmouth, England. About 20 vessels, large and small, tooted horns in salute.

The Associated Press reported that Dunlop was seeking a record for the smallest boat used in a solo Atlantic crossing. He planned to reach England in eight to 12 weeks.

“His boat is filled with food, survival equipment, extra sails, rope, tools and reading matter,” the AP reported. “Mr. Dunlop’s sailboat has a fiberglass hull, and a $16 sextant for navigation. He has a radio, but no backup engine.”

Seventy-eight days and 3,400 miles later – pretty much on schedule – Bill Dunlop stepped shakily ashore from the tiny yacht to a champagne welcome.

He had set the record for crossing the Atlantic west to east in the smallest boat.

“It feels like I’m standing on a sponge,” the AP quoted Dunlop as saying as he embraced his wife Pamela. To cheers of several hundred onlookers, Pam Dunlop sprayed champagne on the sails of her husband’s yacht, the accounts said.

“Wind’s Will” was shipped home and shortened to 8 feet, 11 and three-quarter inches. She was refitted with new sails – straight mast to gaff-rigged, for more sail area, Andrews said.

Not many months later, Dunlop’s wife and daughter were on the same dock in Portland to kiss Dunlop goodbye as he set off down the Eastern Seaboard on what was to be a three-year, round-the-world voyage. This time, on July 31, 1983, the sun shone brightly.

This past May, Dunlop’s daughter, Kim Dunlop Davis, wrote to the Mechanic Falls Town Council with a request for the town to consider a fitting memorial for her father. She hoped that some memorial might be in place by 2009 on the 25th anniversary of her father’s loss at sea.

Private funds would be needed to pay for the memorial, said Town Manager John Hawley, but town officials would certainly endorse some local recognition of Mechanic Falls’ famous adventurer.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and an Auburn native. You can e-mail him at [email protected].