Jessica Watson, lone sailor.

Jessica Watson and "Pink Lady"


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Australia has a brand new "heroine" she is the amazing 16 year old Jessica Watson who has just sailed solo around the world in a tiny 34 foot pink yacht, this epic journey has taken Jessica 7 months, add to this the 12 months intensive planning for the journey and it is obvious that here we have a young lady with the single mindedness necessary to complete such a hazardous task.

Sailing into Sydney on May 15 2010, just 3 days before her 17th birthday has meant the culmination of a dream which very few people on earth, much less 16 year old girls, would dare to contemplate, to challenge the might of the worlds angriest oceans alone on a tiny sailing craft.

In her preparation for this adventure Jessica left her home port on Queensland's Sunshine coast and only some 5 hours later her yacht collided with a 63,000 ton freighter, the Pink Lady was dis- masted and suffered damage to the hull but Jessica managed to maintain control and motor back to Southport harbor.

This incident brought forth the kind of reactions that one would expect, as well as some that only an Australian might expect, the chant went up that how could one so young and inexperienced possibly sail solo around the world, as one would expect, the immediate offer by a local boat building firm to repair the not inconsiderable damage free of cost perhaps not so expected.

Suffice to say that on Oct 19 2009 Jessica set out from Sydney on her record attempt, to be the youngest sailor to sail around the world alone and unassisted, some 7 months later, after battling some of the biggest seas to be found anywhere as well as all of natures elements, alone on her tiny boat she sailed into Sydney Harbor to be met by a huge armada of boats of all sizes filled with well wishers who all wanted to share with her the day of glory.

Some hours later as she berthed alongside the Sydney Opera House she was greeted and cheered by a crowd estimated at over 50.000, her proud parents and brother were first to embrace her, after which The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and many more dignitaries added their best wishes.

Allowing this amazing young lady only 30 minutes to collect her thoughts and absorb the euphoria of the moment she then faced a 30 minute press conference the like of which we seldom see in Australia, Jessica once more proved to be more than able to meet the challenge, she spoke clearly and concisely giving the youth of the nation the message that we are bounded only by our own limitations, if you have a dream and are prepared to follow it you can succeed.

A triumphant return to Sydney for "Pink Lady" and Jessica.

Some of the crowd of well wishers gathered at the Sydney Opera House.

During her voyage Jessica kept a blog it is well worth a visit.

http://youngestround.blogspot.com/


Jessica’s route has taken her north-east across the equator to Washington Island in the North Pacific. Around notorious Cape Horn below South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean and up the east coast of Australia home. An estimated total of 23,000 nautical miles and 230 days at sea!


Beautiful but honestly... Could you do it???

BTW my old mate Wazza did a post about Jessica as well, ckeck it out and follow the first link in his post for an interesting look at the voyage.