Woman alone
After Naomi James sailed single-handed around the world in 1978 she wrote a book about it called Woman alone, which my Dad’s sister bought and gave to my family for Christmas in 1979. Even though it was clearly addressed to our entire family, I considered it my book, because with a bit of tweaking and leaving out all that embarrassing boy girl stuff (I was nine at the time), I felt as though Naomi’s story could be mine. There were quite a few differences of course, but it’s possible to gloss over all sorts of inconvenient facts when you’re nine and desperately trying to claim what’s yours from your little brother and sister.
Three years before she sailed around the world by herself, Naomi, who was from New Zealand by the way, met a man in France called Rob. He was a sailor and I guess Naomi must have liked him because she went with him to England two days later and began sailing with him five times a week even though she felt seasick whenever she stepped on a boat! And it wasn’t long before she was reading Rob’s good friend Chay Blyth’s book Impossible voyage, about sailing single-handed around the world, then Chichester’s, then Knox-Johnston’s, then Alec Rose’s, after which she decided she’d like to sail single-handed around the world too. So, she did.
Naomi was about the same age as my Mum - she even looked a little bit like her in some of her photos – when she completed her voyage and she had been sailing one year less than I had when she started her voyage, albeit more often and in boats much larger than the Optimist I sailed. And most important of all, she was a woman from New Zealand, who had sailed all by herself, around the entire world. There weren’t many girls who sailed at our local yacht club at Lake Mahinapua in the 1970s, so it was something of a revelation to discover that a woman who seemed so ordinary could do something so extraordinary.
I can’t remember if Naomi James’s experience inspired me to want to sail around the world back then, but if it did, even for a short while, it eventually slipped away along with all the other feelings of inspiration we experience when we see people do great things.
Thirty one years later, 16 year old Jessica Watson, inspired by Jesse Martin’s successful attempt to be the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, is nearly three weeks into her attempt to be the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop, and unassisted around the world. She caused a bit of a furor a couple of months ago when she was hit by a 60,000-tonne coal tanker on her way from the Sunshine Coast to Sydney to start her voyage. I guess a lot of people have sailed around the world since Naomi James in 1978, breaking all sorts of records, but apart from a fleeting interest in Jesse Martin’s voyage a couple of years ago I haven’t really paid any attention, until now.
You see, when I was 14 I sailed a nine foot Starling called Nautical Nut every Saturday during the summer at the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club in Picton; I had been sailing for eight years, and had spent about two or three of those years successfully dodging the Picton Ferry as it sailed in and out of Picton Harbour. So, one sunny afternoon in 1984 as I sailed down the middle of the harbour and looked back over my shoulder I wasn’t surprised or that worried to see the 13,621 tonne Arahura Ferry round the point and head into Picton as she had many times before. I checked the wind; I checked the Ferry’s apparent speed; I made a calculated guess about whether she was going to veer right and turn around tight in the far corner of the harbour then back into her bay or keep going straight ahead and turn around in the middle of the harbour. I decided she was going to veer right, so rather than head off to the left-hand side of the harbour I continued sailing straight ahead. A couple of minutes later the Arahura changed direction and we were both sailing straight down the middle of the harbour. Damn, it was going to be close. Then the wind died away and I stalled right where the Ferry was going to turn around. I began desperately working the tiller to move out of the way, but if the Arahura hadn’t finally seen me and slammed on its brakes, churning the water a rather lovely shade of pale green, we definitely would have collided.
So, when I heard about Jessica’s run in with the tanker I was sympathetic. Those big ships, in my personal opinion, can be a bit like four wheel drives. They’re so used to smaller craft scattering before their heft that they can become a little careless about the importance of indicating to others what they’re going to do next. But, I certainly learnt the importance of scattering in future, because you can’t argue with a 13,621 tonne Ferry, or a 63,000 tonne cargo ship for that matter.
Two years after my incident with the Ferry, when I was 16, the same age Jessica is now, it never would have occurred to me that I could sail around the world by myself in a 33 foot yacht. Though I did consider sailing my Starling from Endeavor Inlet to Picton one summer. But, this time, no amount of glossing over facts could make Jessica’s story feel like something I would do. And that’s OK with me. The fact that today a 16 year old girl can take inspiration from the experiences of others, and not be put off by the furor of the public or an accident with a cargo ship, and go ahead with her dream to be the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop, and unassisted around the world is extraordinary. I wish her all the best and I’ll definitely be following her trip.
