Jess Watson confirms arrival date

by Anne-Louise Brown

BUDERIM teen sailor Jessica Watson has assured family and friends there will be no changes to her plans to arrive in Sydney Harbour next weekend.

The 16-year-old will sail into Sydney next Sunday, making her the youngest person in history to sail solo and unassisted around the world.

In her latest blog Jess wrote some people were “wondering why it’s taking so long to get to Sydney” but she was taking it slow so there was no pressure to arrive earlier, in case she encountered bad weather.

“If I was in any sort of rush or the weather was miserable, yes I could get in before the 15th,” Jess said.

“But I made the decision with my team a while back to set the 15th as the arrival date, so that I didn’t feel any pressure trying to meet an earlier date. If my estimated arrival date changed one more time, I’d have a lot of annoyed relatives.”

Jess said conditions at sea had been good, with lots of sunshine.

However, she had been experiencing some problems with her yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady.

“The fuel system on the engine is still giving me grief, so I can’t get the engine to start,” she said.

“The dunny has also decided not to play nicely, which is also more annoying than anything. I mean, couldn’t it wait just one more week before refusing to work?”



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