Meet the Adventurers of the Year: Circumnavigator Jessica Watson

Each day we will feature one of the 2010 Adventures of the Year here on our blog. Get to know them all in our photo gallery, then vote for your favorite for the People's Choice award—every day. You can even vote for a new favorite each day, if you can't pick just one. Photograph by Sergio Dionisio, Getty Images

The Circumnavigator

Jessica Watson sailed around the world, alone, as a teenager.

Before Jessica Watson steered her 34-foot yacht across four oceans, circling the globe without stopping once, her yacht had a collision with a 63,000-ton bulk carrier during the first night of a sea trial. Her boat, Ella’s Pink Lady, lost its mast. Her quest to sail around the world before her 17th birthday was already controversial, and the collision only seemed to strengthen the arguments against the young Australian—that she was too young, too inexperienced, and too immature. (These were also directed at Watson’s parents and two other young wannabe circumnavigators, siblings Zak and Abby Sunderland.) But Watson, who was raised on sailboats and is more poised than most, quietly returned to port, tended to her broken ship, and returned to sea. “Any doubts about whether I could cope mentally,” Watson later wrote, “vanished…I was stronger, more determined, and ready….”

On May 15, 2010, after 210 days, the smiling 16-year-old arrived in Sydney Harbor, the youngest single-handed, non-stop, unassisted circumnavigator of all time. This, too, would become controversial, for detractors took Watson to task for not sailing far enough into the Northern Hemisphere. No matter. Tens of thousands of fans came out to greet her triumphant return to Australia, while millions watched on national television. But perhaps more impressive were the numbers of people following her journey in real time, through her blog. Watson once wrote: “I could write about a fly landing on Ella's Pink Lady and someone would find it interesting.” And 447 encouraging comments followed.—By Ryan Bradley

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Comments

[Hai]

Thak you Ryan Bradley for the post.I like the girl.She is so brave.She is deserved to be one of the adventurers of the century.
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[Hermes Birkin]

Really liked your article, very exciting, and gives a lot of thinking, I hope you can see more of your article, thank you

[Philadelphia House]

I'll vote for Jessica Watson, no second thoughts

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[Calvin Klein]

beautiful but dangerous travelling
Cool

[Paul Bikehike]

Great Jessica! It's amazing to know you, would love know more about your sailing experiemce.

And yes congrates to be the "Adventurer of the Year"

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[robert murray]

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