Jessica Watson

There’s been a lot of talk in the last few days about how Jessica Watson overcame the knockers, particularly internet-dwelling knockers, when she sailed three hours late into Sydney Harbour on Saturday.

Well, I have to admit I was one of those lazy, desk-bound cynics who laughed (once we found out she was OK), when she ran into that tanker last year about four hours into her rehearsal run down the East Coast.

I was also pretty taken aback at the time that her parents thought it was hunky dory to send her off around the world knowing there was chance she wouldn’t come back. But amid the staged-managed hysteria on the Opera House forecourt on Saturday Jessica looked like the calm amid the storm.

Continue reading "Why knocking Jessica is so 2009" »

Teen adventurer Jessica Watson’s dream to circumnavigate the world has been far from plain sailing from the moment she revealed her bold ambition.

Along the way to achieving her goal the 16-year-old endured rough seas, stormy gales and an early collision that almost scuttled her efforts to set out on her voyage.

Indeed, contrary to the triumphant entry her Pink Lady yacht made to Sydney Harbour on Saturday, Watson’s has been a gruelling journey. It was a similar story when it came to the ebb and flow of public opinion that followed her every move since the Queensland teenager pledged to undertake the controversial voyage and become the youngest person to sail round the globe.

Continue reading "Both battered and buoyed by waves of public opinion" »

Amidst all the manufactured excitement attached to the arrival in Sydney of round-the-world sailor Jessica Watson consider this: Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister who condemned the work of Bill Henson on the basis of its alleged exploitation of teenage girls and taxed alco-pops for the binge drinking they “encouraged” among the same, is now turning up to celebrate the fact that a teenage girl was allowed to risk her life by sailing round the world for no better reason than to “break a record”.

It is just one absurdity among many in the Jessica Watson saga, a story that every day feels more and more like an episode of Chris Lilley’s We Can Be Heroes.

Adventure is on hard times. Once, those journeying into an untamed wilderness further than any man (or teenage girl) before them excited the public imagination not merely because what they were doing was dangerous but because they wished, to quote Tennyson’s words carved in memorial to Robert Scott, “to seek, to find and not to yield.”

Continue reading "Jess’s journey a dangerous, narcissistic indulgence" »

As teenage sailor, Jessica Watson, makes a second attempt to embark on her 27,000 nautical mile journey around the world, it’s timely to reflect upon the way in which the she, her family and the notion of the trip has been discussed in the media and society. For, there’s no doubt, that on the water or land, since Jessica and her intentions were first touted, she’s been a walking headline.

Her attempt to be the youngest solo sailor almost ended before it had begun when, on her way to Sydney to commence, she collided with a Chinese cargo ship in the early hours of the morning and limped back to port with a broken mast.

The report on the collision indicates that Jessica does not have the experience everyone initially believed, and so a once very supportive tide has begun to turn against the teenager and her family.

Continue reading "PC rubbish allows a teen to try sailing the globe" »

Talk about looking on the bright side. Young adventuress Jessica Watson hadn’t even started her much-hyped solo circumnavigation of the globe when she some how ran into a bulk carrier this morning, disabling Ella’s Pink Lady, which is, delightfully pink.

Yet her media spokesman Scott Young described the pre-dawn collision as a “small incident” and reassured the public: “The good news is that we know the tracking systems and communication system on her boat are second to none.”

Err, right. That must explain how the 16-year-old skipper ran into a 63,000 tonne monolith the ATSB believes to be the Hong Kong registered Silver Yang less than 24 hours after setting sail for Sydney.

Continue reading "Epic voyage, epic fail?" »