Jessica Watson and the History of Her Undertaking

An ambitious 16 year-old looks to add her name to a long line of solo-circumnavigators.

BY ÇAĞLAR AKÇAY

A 16-year-old girl is single-handing a pink yacht non-stop around the world. Little more than a century ago, there weren’t many people who would believe you if you told them something like this would ever happen. But there is one person who would believe you: Capt’n Joshua Slocum, the skipper of the sloop Spray, which he sailed around the world alone.

Though he probably wasn’t the first sailor to complete a single-handed ocean voyage, Slocum was the first to go all the way around, in three years, and the first to write about it in his famous book “Sailing alone around the world”. The book entered the idea of solo circumnavigation into the fancy of each and every sailor not to leave again.

Some 70 years later, another Joshua, a 39-foot ketch with crimson hull, was rounding the Horn, again with only one soul onboard, the Frenchman Bernard Moitessier. Moitessier was racing in the first non-stop single-handed around the world yacht race, the Golden Globe Race, commissioned by a newspaper in Britain. For him, “globe” turned out to be more important than the “gold”.

After rounding the Horn and crossing his outbound track in the Atlantic, he turned Joshua due south again to round the Cape of Good Hope one more time, dropping anchor in Tahiti after 10 months at sea. Sir Robin Knox-Johnston went on to finish the race, thus claiming the title of “the first sailor to circumnavigate the world non-stop, single-handed.

Fast forward 40 years and scores of single-handed circumnavigations, we see a 16-year-old Australian, Jessica Watson on a pink 34-footer, Ella’s Pink Lady. Her website explains her ambition as becoming “the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world”. Of course ambition alone will not carry you all the way around. Fortunately, Jessica has more; she’s a capable skipper who has already completed the first leg of the race, rounding the Horn and entering the Atlantic. No, not your average teenager.

Her route took her first to the Northern Hemisphere (which she needs to enter in order for the circumnavigation to be complete). From there it was due South into the roaring fourties, and then to the first major step in her voyage: Cape Horn (where her parents will be watching her pass by- how the world has changed!). From the Horn, she’s headed for the Cape of Good Hope and to the Southern Ocean and back to Australia. She’s planning to complete the trip in 8 months.

As is common these days, she has a website, a blog, and videos (she has Skype on board), where you can follow her voyage. Check the sidebar for a link to her blog!

Fair winds, Jessica!