Jessica Watson’s boat sighted on circumnavigation an anomaly for passing ships

by Ray Penalton

Jessica Watson, the 16-year-old Australian girl who cast off 118 days ago from Sydney Harbor on her planned non-stop, unassisted 23,000-mile solo voyage around the world, is about 1,000 miles west of South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

She reports in her blog, however, that lately she has contacted several passing ships, primarily to make sure they were aware of the position of her 34-foot boat, Ella’s Pink Lady.

“Another ship passed last night and as I often do, I gave them a call on the VHF radio and to check that they were aware of our position,” she chronicled on Tuesday.

“Despite the fact that I'd rather have been asleep, the ship's watch-keeper sounded really friendly, (and) it was good to chat to him till the conversation came to a bit of a dead-end when I explained what exactly I was doing out here. I get that reaction quite a bit; apparently it must just be a little too much for them to take in or something?

“But to be fair to them, I suppose it's a bit out of the norm to come across at little pink yacht in the middle of nowhere disappearing in and out of the swell on a dark windy night,” Watson rationalized. “And well, I suppose it would be quite unexpected to be casually told by a girly sounding voice that her next port of call is Sydney!”

As for sailing conditions, Watson reported the wind had been up to 35 knots, which kept her boat “reefed down and flying along. But by the time she had finished her blog, the wind had dropped off to 15 knots and it was time to pull another reef out of the mainsail to keep her moving.

Examiner.com