by Michael Wagner ’12

While the majority of us were going about our winter break in the usual, festive manner, one Australian teenager was hard at work studying weather maps in order to prepare for her long journey.

Jessica Watson, 18, is famous for having circumnavigated the globe by herself when she was 16 and now she is competing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race which started December 26, 2011. This is a 628-nautical-mile race and is notoriously treacherous since six people died in the 1998 race when a storm hit. Nevertheless, Watson will be sailing with the youngest ever crew to be competing in this race, the average age of her crew is 19 years old. This is not to say that this crew is at any disadvantage, however, seeing as how the others in the crew come from racing backgrounds and have clocked up plenty off-shore hours. Also, two of the crew members have already competed in this race before.

Watson says that the main goal of her crew is to just be able to finish the race, however, just as she had told CNN, the crew is fully aware that they are indeed in a race and Watson had said, “It’s tough but we are hoping to be as competitive as possible … ” Watson’s crew is competing in the Sydney 38 class and the competition  has been underway about nine-and-a-half days, more information at http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/default.asp, when this article has been written.

There is still much more to happen in this competition but hopefully the hours and miles the young crew has put in to prepare for this race will break them out of any problems that may occur and propel them to make this a race to remember.