Jessica Watson
| Jessica Watson | |
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Watson in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 2011
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| Born |
18 May 1993 Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia |
| Residence | Buderim, Queensland |
| Nationality | Australian New Zealander |
| Occupation | Sailor |
| Known for | Youngest person to complete solo southern hemisphere circumnavigation (unassisted) |
| Parent(s) | Julie Watson Roger Watson |
| Website | Official website |
Ella's Pink Lady at the Australian National Maritime Museum, following the completion of her voyage
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| History | |
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 AustraliaAustralia
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| Name: | Ella's Pink Lady |
| Namesake: | Ella Baché |
| Route: | Sydney – Kiritimati – Cape Horn – Cape of Good Hope – Cape Leeuwin – Sydney |
| Launched: | 1984 |
| Renamed: | original name Shanty |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | S&S 34 yacht |
| Length: | 34 ft (10 m) |
| Beam: | 10.1 ft (3.1 m) |
| Draught: | 6 ft (1.8 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Crew: | 1 |
Jessica Watson, OAM (born 18 May 1993) is an Australian sailor who completed a southern hemisphere solo circumnavigation at the age of 16. Departing Sydney on 18 October 2009, Watson headed north-east crossing the equator in the Pacific Ocean before crossing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. She returned to Sydney on 15 May 2010, three days before her 17th birthday. The voyage was shorter than the required 21,600 nautical miles to be considered a global circumnavigation, and Watson never claimed the voyage to be an attempt at such, preferring the less formal term 'around the world'. In recognition of her achievement Watson was named the 2011 Young Australian of the Year, and the following year was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. She currently resides in Buderim, Queensland.
Watson was born in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. The second of four children of New Zealander couple Roger and Julie Watson, who moved to Australia in 1987, she has dual Australian and New Zealander citizenship. She has an older sister (Emily) and younger brother and sister (Tom and Hannah). All four took sailing lessons as children, and the family went on to live on board a 16-metre cabin cruiser for five years, the children being home schooled via distance learning. Later they lived on a purpose-built double decker bus for some time. When Watson was eleven and they were still living on the boat, her mother read Jesse Martin's book Lionheart: A Journey of the Human Spirit to the children as a bedtime story. This led to Watson forming the ambition, at age twelve, to sail around the world too.
Watson had been planning to complete a solo non-stop and unassisted circumnavigation since at least early 2008. Officially announced in May 2009, the journey was expected to take eight months with an estimated distance of 23,000 nautical miles. To fulfill the plan of sailing non-stop and unassisted, during the journey no other person would be allowed to give her anything and she must not moor to any port or other boat, although advice over radio communication was permitted.
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Wikipedia