The remembered and the forgotten sailors
This world circumnavigation lark is bigger than thought. There seemed to be two out there – Jessica Watson and Abby Sunderland, with Laura Dekker‘s new boat being prepared. Actually, there are more but it was only in a comment at the Abby Blog that I saw it:
# Jessica Watson, doing fine, non-stop.
# Abby Sunderland, doing fine, non-stop.
# Dilip Donde, doing fine, planned stop.
# Bernt Lüchtenborg, doing fine, double laps, earlier on near disaster and unplanned stop.
# Jeanne Socrates, long unplanned stop, engine and other trouble.
# Minoru Saito, long unplanned stop, engine trouble.
# Alessandro Di Benedetto, doing fine, non-stop.
Does anyone remember the two boys who did the round-the-world-non-stop? The fearless Zac, brother of Abby and then our own Mike Perham? Has anyone checked out Dilip Donde? That’s Jeanne Socrates above in the photo, in Nereida. Truth is, those things are par for the course in most people’s books but the “youngest round” captures imaginations and it helps that they’re young ladies.
I don’t know what it is about the Sunderland effort but they seem to have more trouble than the Watson sail. Perhaps its the “bells and whistles” factor – that the American girl has more creature comforts on board and equipment to power than the Australian – the American boat looks more modern and plastic-fantastic and yet it seems plagued by troubles.
Perhaps the reason Jessica Watson is more feted is that she gives so much.
We, the public, have no right to anything from any of these sailors who have enough to contend with but the Australian team plan to combine Jessica’s writing into a book later and frankly, it is interesting stuff. She writes of dolphins, seabirds landing on the wind vane, she makes videos which you can find, her blog is more comprehensive and we feel we’re right there on the boat with her.
She swears she does all her own writing but even if it is tidied up a bit by the team later, it hardly matters – they’re still her experiences, e.g.:
Yesterday we found a flock of ‘groppies’. These birds spent the day landing in the water next to us, watching us sail past, drifting off behind, then taking off to fly around in a big circle, landing next to us again. The bird’s fascination with Ella’s Pink Lady may have had something to do with the crackers and tinned vegetables I threw to them (yes I’m very pleased to have finally found a use for vegetables!). But whatever it was that had them coming back, it was nice to have the company.
On Abby’s blog, she recounts some of the things happening:
Every big event that has taken place during my trip seems to be maddeningly calm and slow. When I left Marina del Rey, there was barely enough wind to keep my sails full, I almost crossed the equator twice in one day because there was no wind and a current pushing me backwards and now I have a good day with lots of wind but I get into the “Roaring” 40s and my wind dies. Next thing you know I’ll be down at Cape Horn up on deck in a swimming suit reading a book!
I can’t quite place it and that bit of reportage was good but it is too little, too seldom from that side. Maybe it’s immediacy that counts, for example:
Check out Abby’s video page and it’s not quite in the same league. Perhaps she’s just shy, a person of few words and fair enough. This one’s nice:
Hey, it’s not a competition and I’d not like to convey that impression but it would be nice to have more fine detail of life on board Wild Eyes, the little things which happen, the foibles etc.
Maybe it will pick up [they're obviously well organized in the online department] but I suspect that she’s not the same raconteur as the other and in terms of the wider reading public, that is a factor. If Jeanne Socrates was putting out regular bulletins about her troubles …. but isn’t that so selfish of us, the reading public?
Incidentally, if you want some Abby16 merchandise, here it is.
Filed under: Politics & economics
