Dutch sailor Laura Dekker throws a rope as she docks her boat in Simpson Bay Marina in St. Maarten, Saturday Jan. 21, 2012. Dekker ended a yearlong voyage aboard her sailboat named "Guppy" that made her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe, although Guinness World Records and the World Sailing Speed Record Council did not verify the voyage, saying they no longer recognize records for youngest sailors to discourage dangerous attempts. (Photo by AP Photo/Stephan Kogelman)
Laura Dekker set a steady foot aboard a dock in St. Maarten on Saturday, ending a yearlong voyage aboard a sailboat named “Guppy” that apparently made her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe, though her trip was interrupted at several points.
Dozens of people jumped and cheered as Dekker waved, wept and then walked across the dock accompanied by her mother, father, sister and grandparents, who had greeted her at sea earlier.
Dekker arrived in St. Maarten after struggling against high seas and heavy winds on a final, 41-day leg from Cape Town, South Africa.
“There were moments where I was like, ‘What the hell am I doing out here?,’ but I never wanted to stop,” she told reporters. “It’s a dream, and I wanted to do it.”
Dekker claims she is the youngest sailor to complete a round-the-world voyage, but Guinness World Records and the World Sailing Speed Record Council did not verify the claim, saying they no longer recognize records for youngest sailors to discourage dangerous attempts.
Dutch authorities tried to block Dekker’s trip, arguing she was too young to risk her life, while school officials complained she should be in a classroom.
Dekker said she was born to parents living on a boat near the coast of New Zealand and said she first sailed solo at 6 years old. At 10, she said, she began dreaming about crossing the globe. She celebrated her 16th birthday during the trip, eating doughnuts for breakfast after spending time at port with her father and friends the night before in Darwin, Australia.
The teenager covered more than 27,000 nautical miles on a trip with stops that sound like a skim through a travel magazine: the Canary Islands, Panama, the Galapagos Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Bora Bora, Australia, South Africa and now, St. Maarten, from which she set out on Jan. 20, 2011.
“Her story is just amazing,” said one of Dekker’s fans, 10-year-old Jody Bell of Connecticut. “I can’t imagine someone her age going out on sea all by herself.”
Bell was in St. Maarten on a work trip with her mother, Deena Merlen, an attorney in Manhattan, who wanted to see Dekker complete her journey. The two wore T-shirts that read: “Guppy rocks my world.”
“My daughter and I have been following Laura’s story, and we think it’s amazing and inspiring,” Merlen said.
Unlike other young sailors who recently crossed the globe, Dekker repeatedly anchored at ports along the way to sleep, study and repair her 38-foot (11.5-meter) sailboat.
During her trip, she went surfing, scuba diving, cliff diving and discovered a new hobby: playing the flute, which she said in her weblog was easier to play than a guitar in bad weather.
Dekker also complained about custom clearings, boat inspections, ripped sails, heavy squalls, a wet and salty bed, a near-collision with two cargo ships and the presence of some persistent stowaways: cockroaches.
“I became good friends with my boat,” she said. “I learned a lot about myself.”
Highlights of her trip include 47 days of sailing the Indian Ocean, which left her with unsteady legs when she docked in Durban, South Africa, where she walked up and down the pier several times for practice.
While in South Africa, she also saw her first whale.
“It dove right in front of my boat and got all this water on my boat, and that wasn’t really nice,” she said.
Dekker launched her trip two months after Abby Sunderland, a 16-year-old U.S. sailor, was rescued in the middle of the Indian Ocean during a similar attempt. Jessica Watson of Australia completed a 210-day solo voyage at age 16, a few months older than Dekker.
Dekker had said she planned to move to New Zealand after her voyage, but she said Saturday that she wants to finish school first. If she goes to New Zealand, she said, she’d like to sail there.
Jessica Watson Heads Into Sydney Harbour (Photo by Martin Pryor)
Solo teen sailor Jessica Watson says she’s not a hero, but just ‘‘an ordinary girl who had a dream’’.
The 16-year-old was welcomed by thousands of cheering people at the Opera House and on a flotilla of boats crowding Sydney Harbour just before 3pm this afternoon after a 210-day round-the-world voyage.
‘‘It’s completely overwhelming right now,’’ she said as thousands whistled and clapped while others chanted ‘‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie … Oi, oi, oi!’’.
Jessica Watson Escorted Into Sydney (Photo by Martin Pryor)
‘‘There was nothing out there … and there’s absolutely everything now.’’
The harbour was turned into a spectacular reception area, as hundreds of boats crammed into the narrow waters to greet the young adventurer on her small, pink yacht.
She had left Sydney in October, sailing in sometimes difficult conditions through the Pacific, across the equator, past Cape Horn in South America, across the Atlantic, past the Cape of Good Hope, through the Indian Ocean before returning to Australian waters.
Fellow solo sailors West Australian Jesse Martin and English teen Mike Perham helped Watson take her yacht in after she crossed the finish line, as an aeroplane wrote her name ‘‘Jessica’’ in white smoke in the sky.
Fears that Watson would struggle to walk after such a long time at sea were unfounded, as she made her way up a pink carpet to the Opera House forecourt with her family, wearing a broad grin and looking none the worse for her epic voyage.
She was met by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who hailed her as “Australia’s newest hero”.
“You do our nation proud,” he said. “You are a hero for young Australians … and young Australian women.”
But Watson said she had to disagree with Mr Rudd as “I don’t consider myself a hero”.
“I’m an ordinary girl who had a dream. You just have to have a dream and set your mind to it.’’
Confident and relaxed, Watson was even able to throw in a joke or two. ‘‘It was tough,’’ she said when asked how it felt to leave her yacht.
‘‘Stepping off was so strange, because for the last seven months, I was doing everything to stay on board,’’ she said as the crowd laughed. ‘You can achieve anything’
The Queenslander was quick to emphasise how young people – especially girls – could achieve anything ‘‘if you want it enough’’. ‘‘People don’t realise … what girls are made of,’’ she said.
‘‘When you take away those expectations, it’s amazing what you can achieve.’’
She added at a press conference later that people ‘‘just need the passion to want something bad enough and a way to make it happen’’.
Jessica Watson On Ella's Pink Lady (Photo by Martin Pryor)
Thanks to Martin Pryor for waiting hours for Jessica’s arrival to get these photos.
See Video Of Jessica Here
She’s been at sea for seven months, but Jessica Watson’s incredible journey has just a little longer to go.
After 210 days at sea, Jessica Watson’s boat Ella’s Pink Lady is almost at Sydney Heads, where she will be greeted by thousands of people on the city’s harbour, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the NSW Premier and her family and friends.
Jessica Watson
Jessica Watson (Photo by EPA/Dean Lewins)
Tens of thousands of fans waving pink flags are expected to line Sydney Harbour’s foreshore on Saturday to welcome back round-the-world sailor Jessica Watson.
The 16-year-old’s homecoming is expected to rank among the biggest events in Sydney as the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority prepares for a huge crowd.
It has classified Watson’s arrival as a Class One event – the same rating it gives to New Year’s Eve celebrations and the Mardi Gras.
When Australian Kay Cottee, the first woman to complete a solo nonstop circumnavigation of the globe, returned to Sydney Harbour in 1988 she was greeted by a crowd of 100,000 people.
The crowd on Saturday could be even bigger, taking into account the popularity of Watson’s journey blog.
Watson is expected to complete her solo, nonstop voyage on Saturday, sailing through the official finish line at Sydney Heads about 11.30am (AEST).
One hour later, after her passport has been checked by Customs onboard her yacht, Ella’s Pink Lady, she will step on to land for the first time in almost seven months into the arms of her parents at the Opera House.
Watson’s managers are hoping Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and NSW Premier Kristina Keneally will also be there to welcome her.
Special event clearways will be in place in the Sydney central business district, Double Bay, Mosman and Watsons Bay from 9am to 4pm and roads may be closed by police if required.
NSW Transport Minister David Campbell said it was difficult to predict the size of Saturday’s crowd.
“It is not something that we have experience of,” he told reporters in Sydney on Monday.
“New Year’s Eve, Mardi Gras, we know what to expect … What we do know is that a lot of people are in awe of the achievement of this young woman.
“We’re planning for a very large event.”
Mr Campbell would not specify what the event was costing the state government and Events NSW, or whether Watson’s management, 5 Oceans Media, was paying some of the costs.
He said the cost to taxpayers would be evaluated “at the end of the process”.
“It’s part of governing. It’s part of providing services to our community and it’s one of the challenges that comes along from time to time,” Mr Campbell said.
The public relations company managing Saturday’s event, Janet Glover PR & Events, said it believed the recent controversy surrounding Watson’s voyage had galvanised local support for the young sailor.
Sail-world.com magazine claimed last week the teen’s route had cut corners, saying that she was more than 2000 nautical miles (about 3700 kilometres) short of a world record and has not travelled far enough north of the equator.
But Watson’s management said that wasn’t true.
“Jessica has adhered to every component of her chosen route and as of 3pm on Sunday, she had sailed a total of 22,808 nautical miles,” the teen’s project manager, Bruce Arms, wrote on Watson’s website.
In order to claim a World Sailing Speed Record Council record, a sailor must be aged over 18, must cover 21,600 nautical miles and fulfil a series of technical requirements.
Watson, who will be three days shy of her 17th birthday when she arrives in Sydney, may have not travelled far enough above the equator to meet those requirements as the record is not just about distance – it’s also about the route.
But Watson’s management said it’s a moot point as there’s no official body to recognise the under-18 sailor’s feat and, therefore, no official rules for the voyage.
Jessica Watson's Pink Boat (Photo by Colin Merry)
Check out Jessica’s Arrival At http://www.jessicawatson.com.au/
Jessica Waston at Sydney Boat Show In 2009 (Photo by Colin Merry)
Jessica Watson Is back in Australian Waters.
She had this to say about arriving in her country’s home waters. “The flyover with Mum, Dad, Tom and Hannah on Saturday was a great welcome to Australian waters and a lot of fun. Even though all I could see was a small plane way overhead, it was still really cool. Mum reckons that Ella’s Pink Lady and I looked really small between the swell, which seems strange to me because Ella’s Pink Lady is my whole world at the moment!
Things got pretty interesting for a while last night, when what I thought was just a light passing squall, turned into a full on electrical storm, the worst I’ve seen at sea yet. Even though I could hardly see it through the icy cold sideways rain, the lightning was striking the water nearby much too close for my liking. The wind gusted pretty high too.
Ella’s Pink Lady was already well reefed down at the time. But till I was able to furl almost all of the headsail away and pull the tiny third reef in, we were healed over pretty dramatically. But the wind soon dropped again and as it did, the rain really started. It was so heavy that you could hardly see where the water stopped and the sky began. A bit of thunder has never worried me, but alone at sea at 4 in the morning, it seems particularly menacing and it becomes a lot harder to keep your nerves in check!
Other than the lightning storm, the weather’s still been really unsettled with almost constant rain, squalls and a messy sea. Luckily the wind hasn’t been too strong though. Progress has been good and even with all this gloomy grey stuff, I’m happy as Larry and mostly staying dry thanks to my snug dodger.
Jessica was yesterday treated to a visit from some guests who dropped by. Her Mum, Dad, brother Tom and sister Hannah flew overhead to give her a wave from a small plane. “With the sun peaking out through the clouds and Ella’s Pink Lady surfing along in a big sea and lots of silly chatter over the VHF, it was a really, really special moment, “said Jessica”
“The plane couldn’t come in very close at all this time, which was a pity, because I’d made a special effort with my hair, painted my toe nails pink and shaved my legs especially. Strangely it felt a lot like a normal family get together which gives you an idea of what’s become normal for me.”
She is due in port in a couple of weeks.
