"It became an obsession, almost an obligation," says his youngest son, Jason, a 35-year-old English professor in Merced, California. In 1992, Long bought a bare hull made of Cor-Ten steel and used his skills as a master carpenter to finish out the interior in teak and other hardwoods. He and Julia were separating, though the family would still spend holidays together, and Cúlin was a labor of love after all those years of steaming and bending, carving and fitting.

Then there were his half-dozen attempts to make the voyage. Long was delayed over the years by family events, such as the birth of a granddaughter, but also by having to turn back many times. Though he'd served in the merchant marine as a young man, sailing around the world delivering bananas and coffee, he didn't know navigation or his boat's equipment very well. On his first attempt, he sailed north instead of south after he left San Francisco Bay. The next trip was the same; he ended up near Tomales Bay, more than 40 miles up the coast. The next time Long tried, he found himself out in the Farallon Islands, almost due west.

Each time, he'd say he was done. "I'm sick, I'm tired, my hand is hurt," he said after the Farallones. "I'm done with this. This is it."

Then, the next day, there would be another voice mail, saying he knew now what had gone wrong and how to fix it. "I think I can do this."

When Long left on his final voyage, on October 14, 2007, there was no party. No one saw him off. Sailors at the dock had ridiculed him for years, and his family had lost faith. For the early attempts, they gave going-away parties. After a while, though, they stopped believing he would ever really go more than a few miles outside the Golden Gate. Jason hoped he might just sell the Cúlin and get a condo and season tickets to the Oakland A's. "We felt OK," he told me, "because we thought he would never go."

But this voyage had become, to some extent, a grudge match against the naysayers. This time, Long had taken classes. He knew navigation and his equipment, and he surprised everyone by making it down to Santa Barbara to visit his oldest son, Aaron, a business student. He was on his way. He was anxious to continue on, sailing for Mazatlán within a week.

"I've got my sea legs back," he said. "I'm feeling good. I'm going."