Supporting our Lisa!
WWSA's three degrees of longitude
Lisa Blair, aboard her yacht Climate Action Now, is setting off in February 2022 chasing her fourth world record as the fastest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around Antarctica below 45 degrees. This has presented an opportunity to collect scientific data on ocean health, deploy weather drifter buoys, and collect microplastic samples in the most remote oceans of Antarctica. Few ships travel these areas and minimal data currently exists.
Lisa has been a key member of Women Who Sail Australia since the inaugural WWSA Gathering on the Bay (GOTB) in 2016. Lisa amazed us with her plans to sail solo around Antarctica the following year, the audience enthralled by her enthusiasm and energy.
By the time the 2017 GOTB rolled around, Lisa was deep in the Southern Ocean and most of us were glued to our computer screens awaiting daily updates on her progress. Lisa spoke to the 2017 Gathering attendees via Satellite phone – broadcast via microphone to the room. There was barely a dry eye as she chatted cheerily from those remote and frigid waters to us in balmy Port Stephens. Two days later we awoke to a phone call relaying the devastating news of her dismasting.
Those who know Lisa were not at all surprised that she managed to jury rig Climate Action Now and get herself and her boat safely to Cape Town, South Africa, for repairs before completing her solo record-breaking circumnavigation.
The enormity of what Lisa experienced and accomplished during this time was evident when she showed us her video footage once back home. To many of us, Lisa’s dismasting and consequent handling of that situation cemented her reputation as one of the most capable sailors on the globe. All the more remarkable considering she is from a non-sailing background, grew up inland, and was once turned down for a deckhand position on a charter yacht in the Whitsundays!
Safely back in Australia, Lisa’s feet barely touched the dock before she embarked on an east coast speaking tour, prepared an all-women team to compete aboard Climate Action Now in the 2017 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race, skippered the all-women team aboard Dove-Defi des filles in the exhausting six-day PONANT Groupama yacht race in New Caledonia, and set off on another record-breaking solo circumnavigation – this time nonstop around Australia.
Amongst all this, Lisa somehow found the time to write about her Southern Ocean experiences in her debut book ‘Facing Fear’. She also found time to attend the 2018 and 2019 GOTB events at Port Stephens (and was on track for 2020/21 but of course the pandemic had other plans for us all).
Having heard Lisa speak on numerous occasions I know her story well, she is a remarkable woman, and it came as no surprise when she told me she was planning a second circumnavigation of Antarctica, determined to complete the journey non-stop and to break the speed record (which she was ahead of at the time of her dismasting in 2017) set in 2008 by Russian Fedor Konyukhov.
Always thinking outside the box, Lisa came up with a novel way to raise funds for the upcoming circumnavigation. Sponsors could ‘purchase’ a degree of longitude.
WWSA members are always keen to support Lisa in any way we can, so we combined our pennies and bought three degrees of longitude: 123 degrees west, 23 degrees east, and 90 degrees east.
As Lisa reaches our ‘degrees’ on her circumnavigation there will be much celebration!
If you’d like to read more about Lisa’s upcoming voyage and perhaps purchase a degree yourself (or encourage your local club to do so) go to Lisa’s webpage ‘Lisa Blair Sails the World’.
And be sure to snaffle a copy of her new book ‘Facing Fear’, available at good bookstores or from www.lisablairsailstheworld.com
