Freya Hoffmeister
Freya Hoffmeister (right)
with Birgit Fischer, 2010 |
|
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Woman In Black |
| Nationality | German |
| Born |
May 10, 1964 Heikendorf, Germany |
| Residence | Husum, Germany |
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) |
| Website | freyahoffmeister |
| Sport | |
| Country | Germany |
| Sport | Sea kayak |
Freya Hoffmeister (born May 10, 1964) is a German business owner and athlete who holds several sea kayaking endurance records. In 2009 she completed a circumnavigation of Australia solo and unassisted, becoming the first woman and only the second person to do so. On May 3, 2015, she became the first person to solo circumnavigate the continent of South America.
Hoffmeister has been athletic from a young age, able to walk on her hands around her family home at the age of six. She competed as a gymnast, but grew too tall for the sport at age sixteen. She shifted to skeet shooting, and at twenty-three took up skydiving, completing 1,500 jumps, including the first-ever tandem jump onto the North Pole. She is also former Miss Germany beauty contestant, coming in sixth in the competition.
Hoffmeister owns a chain of seven franchise ice cream cafes, a salad bistro and a Christmas shop.
In 2007 Freya and Greg Stamer completed the fastest-ever sea kayak circumnavigation of Iceland in 33 days.
She finished a solo unassisted circumnavigation of the South Island of New Zealand in January 2008, becoming the third person in 30 years to do so, competing with Barbro "Babs" Lindman of Sweden and Justine Curgenven of Wales to be the first woman to do so. She set the fastest solo time for the 2,700 kilometres (1,700 mi) voyage in 70 days, 6 days faster than the previous record set by Paul Caffyn.
Hoffmeister's Australian trip commenced from Queenscliff, Victoria on January 18, 2009. She paddled in an anti-clockwise direction along the Australian mainland coastline and completed the 13,790 kilometres (8,570 mi) voyage in 322 days, of which 245 were paddling. Hoffmeister reached the approximate half-way mark at Broome, Western Australia in 171 days on 29 June 2009. and finished back at Queenscliff on December 15, 2009. To take a "shortcut", she paddled across the Gulf of Carpentaria from Jackson River to Nhulunbuy a distance of 575 kilometres (357 mi). The crossing took seven nights and eight days and required sleeping in the kayak at sea. This crossing was done only twice before, once by Eric Stiller and Tony Brown, chronicled in Stiller's book "Keep Australia on Your Left," and once by solo kayaker Andrew McAuley.
...
Wikipedia