‘MY NEW CHALLENGE’ Jessica Watson
A decade after sailing solo around the world as a 16-year-old, the Queenslander has embarked on a new journey – and found love with a sailor
On trips back to her home state, Jessica Watson often heads to the Queensland Maritime Museum to visit an old friend. Her name is Ella’s Pink Lady, a Sparkman & Stephens 34-foot (10m) yacht that Watson took on a 210-day, around 23,000 nautical mile (43,000km) journey that has become part of Australian sailing folklore.
“It’s a beautiful place for it, I think she’s retired comfortably,” Watson tells WHO from Melbourne. “I see people walking past and I hope they don’t see me and put two and two together. I just give her a sneaky hug.”
It’s little wonder there’s a special place in her heart for the boat. Ten years ago on October 18, the then 16-year-old set sail in Ella’s Pink Lady from Sydney Harbour on an ambitious and controversial quest to sail around the world. On May 15, 2010, the teenager defied her many naysayers to return a hero, becoming the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the globe.
Her return sparked scenes to rival Sydney’s New Year’s Eve: a harbour packed with vessels and a foreshore full of people, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. “It was beyond any of my expectations,” recalls Watson. “I don’t know if I have come down from that high.”
A decade on, with a Master of Business Administration, the 26-year-old now works as a management consultant for an accounting firm in Melbourne. “People don’t realise that as much as I absolutely love sailing, I wanted it to be a hobby for life, rather than a career,” she says. “My job is exactly what I was looking for. A different challenge.”
Though she doesn’t own a yacht at the moment, Watson likes to sail on weekends, often with her boyfriend, Cameron Dale, who she’s been with for “more than a few years” and who is also a keen sailor. “That’s how we met,” she says. “But he’s more of a racing sailor. I’m teaching him to slow down, treat sailing as an adventure.”
She has much experience on that front. Watson’s daring 2009 feat was inspired by Jesse Martin, the Australian adventurer who in 1999 became the youngest person, at age 18, to circumnavigate the globe. At the time, Jessica’s parents, Julie and Roger, faced much criticism for allowing their daughter to attempt such a feat. “It was definitely hard for them,” says Watson.
The most hair-raising moment of the trip was a storm in the Atlantic. “I was rolled upside down,” she says. Mostly, however, it was a joy. “It was one of the most amazing times of my life,” says Watson, whose feat was not officially recognised by the World Sailing Speed Record Council, with the body discontinuing the ‘youngest’ category since Martin’s voyage.
“There was the exciting milestones like [rounding] Cape Horn. And of course the wildlife experiences, the special moments with the birds or the dolphins.”
One night she spotted a shooting star, which she blogged about from her yacht, revealing she had made a wish. “The wish I made is definitely coming true,” Watson says. “I can’t say what it is, and it wasn’t something about me.”
Since her voyage, Watson, who was the 2011 Young Australian of the Year, has continued to challenge herself. Though she has long suffered from dyslexia, last year she published a novel, Indigo Blue, a children’s adventure story about self-discovery. It was her mum who inspired in her a love of reading. “I was so dyslexic,” says Watson. “She helped me to fall in love with stories so that it would give me a reason to push through to the end of a book.”
As for her next quest, it might involve a new yacht. “People ask, ‘Would you do it again?’,” she says. “There are certain things I want to do, and one is sailing around the world but with stops along the way. Visiting all those beautiful places that I had sailed past 10 years ago.”
“It was beyond any of my expectations”