Spirit of a foster kid ELANA’S TRIP OF A LIFETIME
THE SAILOR’S LATE GRAN INSPIRES HER TO MAKE WAVES IN THE WORLD
Life at sea for solo aroundthe-world sailor Elana Connor has thrown up many challenges. The freshfaced Californian with a ready smile is now sitting out the Covid-19 pandemic in New Zealand, where she has been able to put her time to good use, fundraising for teenaged Kiwis in care.
Thanks to her own family struggles, Elana identifies strongly with teens who haven’t had the best start in life.
She was two when her mother died. She and her brother ended up living with their alcoholic father and stepmother. It was a violent, abusive home and Elana’s father was eventually jailed.
Going into state foster care aged 15 provided some much-needed mental health support, but Elana’s education was seriously disrupted. However, through sheer determination and working multiple jobs, she graduated from university, which, in turn, led to a job in Silicon Valley and the ability to save for her 10.5-metre sailboat Windfola. Throughout all her struggles, Elana’s salvation was her loving grandmother Betty.
“My grandmother wasn’t able to have me and my brother live with her, but when we were young, she moved as close as she could to be near us,” Elana shares. “She knew something wasn’t right in our home.”
Betty eventually testified in court against her own son, helping to secure his conviction and imprisonment. Betty’s health started to decline last year after a fall, about the time that New Zealand went into lockdown. Elana arranged residential care for Betty and then had to make a tough decision – fly back to the US to be at her beloved gran’s bedside or stay put in New Zealand on her visitor visa, which had been extended due to Covid-19.
“I knew that if I left New Zealand, it would be a one-way ticket and I wouldn’t be able to get back to my boat because no one knows when things will open up again. Windfola is my only home, so I decided to stay in New Zealand, a heartbreaking decision because she had done so much for me.”
Elana’s decision to stay was softened by imagining her grandmother’s reaction if she had given up her dream to sail around the world.
“She would have been so mad at me if I gave up! She always wanted me to do big things. So I decided that if I was staying, I would make it worth being apart from her and that is when I partnered with VOYCE – Whakarongo Mai – and the Spirit of Adventure Trust, which operates Spirit of New Zealand.”
Elana plans to spend the coming winter months in Auckland, where she began and completed her seven-month fundraising voyage, sailing a figure-eight circumnavigation of New Zealand, meaning she crossed Cook Strait twice.
Accompanied by her rescue dog Zia, Elana visited 22 ports, welcoming onboard more than 1300 visitors, and spoke to audiences at numerous yacht clubs. Her efforts raised nearly $45,000 for the Voyage for Voyce Scholarship Fund. The scholarships pay for 16- to 18-year-olds in foster care to test themselves during a 10-day leadership course onboard the Spirit of New Zealand.
Elana’s hoping the young people who sail on the Kiwi vessel experience challenges at sea and the satisfaction of dealing with them as she has, ranging from stowaway vermin to sudden wind changes.
“Zia woke me up at night because she heard a rat
‘She would have been mad at me if I had given up. She wanted me to do big things’
scratching around. It was very clever – it only ate bait out of the lower-quality traps that didn’t easily trigger.”
Happily, the pesky rodent disappeared, ending several weeks of disturbed sleep for Elana who’d also had to repair the damage it had inflicted on the boat’s wiring and other essential equipment.
There’s plenty to worry about as a solo sailor and Elana’s life-long anxiety related to post-traumatic stress is helped by medication. Reliable weather forecasting is another boon in steering Windfola across sometimes rough seas. So far, the intrepid traveller has avoided truly terrifying moments – her biggest scare in 18 months sailing New Zealand’s waters was a sudden wind change after crossing Cook Strait and heading into Wellington.
Elana explains, “The wind went from five knots, just a light breeze, to suddenly a much stronger, sustained wind. Fortunately, San Francisco, where I learned to sail, is quite similar.”
In sharing the story of her life, Elana emphasises that it only takes one person to help build a young person’s courage and resilience. Her person was Betty, who died in March this year.
“My courage comes from my grandmother’s belief in me and my determination that other young people should not experience what I went through. I want constructive and lasting changes to state care systems internationally.
“And I want young people in care to realise that despite what has happened to them, it doesn’t define them. They can do amazing things.” #