Jessica Watson - Half way there and the book deal is done

by Nancy Knudsen on 1 Feb 2010 French-owned Hachette Publishers have announced that they will publish the story of Australian16 year old's Jessica Watson’s solo sail around the world 'as soon as possible after her return'. This is expected to be in August.

...and on-board Ella's Pink Lady, when she's not grappling with 70 knot squalls, Jessica is already writing it - in the form of her blogs that she writes on an 'almost daily' basis.

This is in spite of a recent admission by her mother Julie Watson that Jessica has been diagnosed with sever dyslexia, a condition that hampered her learning at school, and caused the event the resulted in Jessica's desire to sail around the world alone.

At the age of 11, her mother was reading books to her 'because she couldn't read', as she told Brisbane's Sunday newspaper, the Sunday Mail recently.

Then, one day she read her the book Lionheart, which is the story of Jesse Martin's record setting round world voyage in 1999, non-stop and unassisted, in the same type of boat that Jessica is now sailing, a Sparksman and Stephens S&S34.

At the moment, Jessica is experiencing good conditions, a change from last week when the tough little boat experienced some damage during a gale. But things have changed right now, with Jessica claiming that, 'All this warm sunshine and easy sailing reminds me of the tropics and feels like holiday!'

While Jessica has around 2,000 miles to go to reach the Cape of Good Hope, her Californian counterpart Abby Sunderland has had to put into shore in Mexico to have some upgrading and repairs - mainly to her electrical system. This means she will need to start her non-stop round world bid again, from Mexico. See http://www.sail-world.com/Cruising/international/Abby-Sunderland-journey-aborted/65986!story.