Surviving the Five Great Capes - Karen Thorndike's story
by Frank Magnotta/Sail-World on 2 May 2014
SW
Is this documentary worth making? A documentary about the journey of Karen Thorndike, the first American woman to sail solo around the world south of the five great capes of the Southern Ocean? Does more of the world need to know about this inspiring sailor? If you think so, you might think about donating a dollar or two to fund it... Read on:
Washington born Karen Thorndike completed a voyage of 33,000 miles in a 36-foot yacht named Amelia (after Amelia Earhart) in 1998, at the age of 56. The trip took her two years and two weeks, and included a three-month hospitalization for angina pectoris.
Like Jeanne Socrates after her, her interest in sailing only began when she was in her forties. Thorndike took some sailing lessons, began racing and was soon delivering boats from Hawaii to Seattle.
During one of those trips, her dream of circumnavigating began to take shape. However, when she confided in a crew member and friend about her plans, he told her, 'That’s impossible. You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into.'
After that, Thorndike kept her plans to herself until she bought her boat. After her voyage she received a Guinness World Records certificate acknowledging her accomplishment.
This documentary will not only celebrate her achievement, so far little celebrated, but also explore what it would be like to sail around the world by yourself, in the middle of the ocean with twenty-foot waves knowing that if you made just one little mistake, it could prove fatal.
It will tell the feelings, thoughts, obstacles, joys, triumphs, tragedies and ultimately the final victory of returning home after accomplishing something that no other American woman had ever accomplished before
That’s what the Kickstarter campaign is about.
If you think this is a documentary worth supporting with a cash donation, large or small, go to the Kickstarter campaign:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/942824706/surviving-the-five-great-capes-karen-thorndikes-st
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