Jeanne Socrates over the equator - again

by Nancy Knudsen on 2 Jul 2010 Solo sailor Jeanne Socrates has just emailed us saying she has crossed the equator - again! So how many times is that? When one is a passionate sailor like Jeanne Socrates, it's probably easy to lose count.

Jeanne, in case you haven't heard of her, at 60-something, is building to be the female answer to Japan's eight-time-circumnavigator and 76-year-old Minoru Saito.

After extensive cruising, (she didn't begin to sail until in her forties), in June, 2008, just as she was 60 miles and a half-day sail from the completion of her first solo circumnavigation of the world she was shipwrecked off the coast of Mexico.

In that incident she woke in the middle of the night to find her yacht Nereida beached on the shore of Playa Michigan, near Acapulco.

In the current voyage, the former maths teacher set sail from Hamble to achieve a non-stop circumnavigation, a 25,000-mile journey which was to take her south of all the great southern capes, from Lanzarote in September.

However, disappointing engine problems had her making a necessary stop in Cape Town, where she had a new engine installed.

Disappointed, but not beaten, since then she has continued on across the Indian Ocean, sharing a nasty ocean with Australia's Jessica Watson as they rounded Tasmania at the same time, and then passing between the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

She is now headed for Hawaii, and then to San Francisco. She had been hoping to join the single handed Trans-Pac Race in mid-June, but time has been against her. (As she has reverted to sailing into warmer climes, rather than having the Southern Ocean winds behind her, she will have had the trade winds against her much of the time)

Where will she go next? Stay tuned to Sail-World Cruising, and we'll keep reporting her progress.

If you would like to check out all her past journeys, go to svnereida.com