Aussie claims non-stop circumnavigation record
Australian skipper Bill Hatfield has claimed the record for the oldest person to sail around the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.
The 81-year-old former fisherman chose the westabout route, against the prevailing winds and currents, completing the circumnavigation in 259 days aboard his 38ft Northshore LÕEau Commotion.
He left Gold Coast Seaway in Queensland on 8 June 2019, returning on 22 February 2020, fulfilling a dream he has had since a child.
“I’m very pleased to be back and it’s nice to be back on land again. I very much appreciate the welcome I’ve had. It is nice to have done it,” he said.
Hatfield carefully planned the circumnavigation, working out a daily diet of “a third of a tin of beans, a tin of tuna, 100g of rice, 100g of flour, 100g of oats and 150g of milk powder.” He was also prepared for the inevitable gear failures, sometimes using creative ways to make repairs such as fashioning an auxiliary tiller from the plywood mattress supports in the quarter berth and using a fan blade which was above his berth to replace a failed hydrogenerator prop.
Hatfield also had a lucky escape around 225 miles south east of St Helena.
“I had a beautiful sail in a following wind and a shackle must have broken and the sail went over the bow. As I was pulling it in the sail got underneath me and I went overboard and I had no harness on again so that was a silly thing, I should have had a harness on,” he admitted.
This was Hatfield’s fourth attempt at the record in the last five years, although he successfully completed a westabout circumnavigation with one stop to make repairs in 2018. He takes the non-stop record from British skipper Jeanne Socrates, who was 77 when she completed her 2019 circumnavigation.