Ocean Cruising Club: Jester Award 2025
by Ocean Cruising Club 8 Feb 22:08 PST
Jasmine Harrison © Jasmine Harrison
The 2025 Jester Award which recognises a noteworthy singlehanded voyage or series of voyages made in a vessel of 30ft or less overall, or a contribution to the art of singlehanded ocean sailing is presented to British single-hander Jasmine Harrison. With very limited prior sailing experience, Jasmine sailed her 5.8 metre plywood yacht, Numbatou, in the 2025 edition of the Mini Globe Race (MGR).
Jasmine is an exceptionally courageous and determined young sailor whose achievements already stand out within the world of singlehanded voyaging. She qualified for OCC membership in 2021 by rowing solo across the Atlantic at age 21, becoming a world record holder as the youngest woman ever to do the row. In 2022, she completed another remarkable endurance feat in the U.K. A 120-day swim from Land's End to John O'Groats, raising substantial funds for charity. In 2024 Jasmine joined the OCC.
Jasmine arrived in Lagos, Portugal to prepare Numbatou, a 5.80-metre plywood yacht, for the Mini Globe Race (MGR). With only limited sailing experience—and openly admitting she "did not know how to sail" when she set off—Jasmine undertook the necessary qualifying passages: Lagos to Lanzarote and then a transatlantic crossing to Antigua. These were completed successfully, allowing her to join the Mini Globe Race (MGR) start in March 2025.
Since then she has sailed over 21,000 miles singlehanded from Antigua to Cape Town via Panama, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, Australia, Cocos (Keeling), Réunion, Mauritius and Durban surviving whatever nature threw at her. Along the way she achieved a class-leading 179-mile/24-hour run, an extraordinary performance for a 5.80-metre plywood vessel. Her resilience, positivity and humility have inspired young people at every stopover and back home in the U.K. and especially her home County of Yorkshire. She is an outstanding ambassador for the OCC and for women in ocean sailing. Read about all of her courageous exploits on the OCC website.
Jasmine exemplifies the spirit of the Jester Award: singlehanded determination, resourcefulness and quiet courage in a small boat.
Find out more at www.jasmine-harrison.com.