Jessica Watson and the image of a hardy sailor

by Nancy Knudsen on 16 May 2010 She looks too slender to put on a winch, not strong enough to pull in a spinnaker, not old enough to put on the wheel, and too frail for an ocean journey.

If Jessica Watson walked down the wharf at any yacht club looking for a sail in a Saturday afternoon race, it's likely that most skippers would smile indulgently and tell her to come back next year.

The sixteen-year-old teenager has just destroyed forever the image of what makes a hardy sailor.

While the sailing fraternity have been overwhelmingly in admiration of her sailing skills, the non-sailing population of Australia were incredulous first at the very idea of what she planned, and flabbergasted when she actually carried it out. As she slowly picked off the southern capes that she had to pass to sail herself round the globe and back to Sydney, the wonder, and the attention grew.

When the tiny figure emerged from her 34ft boat on Sunday, hugged her parents and then began her long walk around Sydney's Opera House on her pink welcome mat to meet the Prime Minister, her slenderness – she's lost several kilos during the voyage – and simplicity were a stunning contrast against the lavishness of the welcome.

The small teenager who emerged from her seven months at sea to a hero's welcome has simply done what she announced she would do when she was fourteen, get into a sailing boat and sail herself around the world.

It's to be hoped, for the sake of Australia's sailing mothers, that there won't be dozens of fourteen-year-olds planning the same thing. There only needed to be one, to inspire a nation with the idea, as Jessica put it, that 'you don't have to be special, you just have to have a dream, and work hard to achieve it.'

Universal advice, the kind of advice that can make a nation great - from a slip of a girl who still doesn't look as though she could get a sail on a Saturday afternoon in a yacht club.