Visit from home for teen sailor Watson

by By Monique Ross

Teenage solo sailor Jessica Watson will be visited by a familiar face as she battles through one of the most dangerous phases of her round-the-world journey.

The 16-year-old from the Sunshine Coast in south-east Queensland is now about 2,000 kilometres away from rounding Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America as she tries to become the youngest person to sail unsupported around the world.

She has covered more than 13,500km of the 37,000km voyage since setting sail from Sydney in her yacht Pink Lady in October.

Now another Australian sailor is planning to visit her as she rounds the notorious Cape Horn, considered one of the most hazardous sailing challenges in the world.

John Bankart is the chief of a Queensland sailing school and a former employer of Ms Watson.

He says a happy coincidence will see him sailing in Cape Horn's Drake Passage at the same time as Ms Watson.

Mr Bankart will soon fly to Argentina and from there to Chile before boarding a boat for his Drake Passage trip.

"We will set up a time we can talk to her, and if the weather is right we can actually get a visual on her," he told ABC Online.

"We've got her contact details and we will contact her by whatever means we can, whether it is by HF radio or satellite communication.

Mr Bankart says the visit, between January 6 and 8, will remind Ms Watson she is not alone.

"I thought it would be good for her to have someone that she knows down there in the Great Southern Ocean with her, a great morale boost."

Mr Bankart says the seas around Cape Horn are among the most dangerous in the world.

"It is known as the sailor's Everest and is probably one of the worst places in the world," he said.

"In the Southern Ocean, all of the wind and waves go east and until they get to Cape Horn they are sort of uninhibited, so they just sweep around the bottom of the world.

"But when they get to Cape Horn, there is only a very narrow spot between Cape Horn and the peninsula of Antarctica, about 450 miles wide and quite shallow .

"As the oceans go through there, they sweep up, they build up very, very high."

Ms Watson encountered some of the toughest weather yet overnight, battling five-metre swells and wind gusts of up to 44 knots.

The wind later dropped back to 30 knots but swells remained constant at over five metres.

"When the barometer dropped from 1,014 to 995, we knew we were in for some strong winds," Ms Watson said in a statement on her website.

"Fortunately meteorologist Bob was spot-on with his forecast, so we were well prepared for this and had cross-checked everything in advance.

"It was a good one with some gusts hitting 44 knots, but everything went well."

Ms Watson said she did not battle the wild weather alone.

"When the wind started to pick up, a dolphin swan right up alongside Ella's Pink Lady," she said.

"Every time I looked out the porthole, it was still there with me.

"This one stayed for over six hours, all the way through the storm."

By Monique Ross