Facing Fear , livre ebook

Australian Geographic - Lisa Blair

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172 pages

English

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Facing Fear is the inspiring true story of Lisa Blair, who on 25 July 2017 became the first woman to sail solo around Antarctica. She very nearly didn’t live to tell the tale. Seventy-two days into her circumnavigation, when Lisa was more than 1000 nautical miles from land, the mast of Climate Action Now came crashing down in a ferocious storm. In freezing conditions, Lisa battled massive waves and gale-force winds, fighting through the night to save her life and her boat. Following her ordeal, Lisa relied on her unbreakable spirit to beat the odds and complete her world record. With unwavering focus and determination, she sailed home, completing her journey after 183 days. This is the story of her remarkable voyage.

Informations

Publié par	Australian Geographic
Date de parution	01 février 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781922388094
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0025€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The story of Lisa’s Antarctic circumnavigation is a dramatic one. Lisa is the epitome of determination when faced with devastating setbacks in the world’s most isolated and dangerous oceans. The Southern Ocean is a place of mystery and fascination, and Lisa’s experience sailing this mighty ocean is a testament to just how tough female sailors are!
Jessica Watson OAM

Lisa is a great example of how to achieve your dreams with planning, preparation and dedication.
Kay Cottee AO

Lisa Blair’s Southern Ocean voyage was one of the great adventures of our lifetime.
Dick Smith AC

An incredible story of adventure and endurance that shows what the human spirit can achieve when pushed to its limits.
Sir Richard Branson

Published in 2020 by Australian Geographic
Level 7, 54 Park Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone 02 9136 7214 Email editorial@ausgeo.com.au
Website australiangeographic.com.au
Copyright © Australian Geographic
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form and by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
Editor Julian Welch
Cover concept, route track and post-it note graphic Shelley Blair
Creative director Mike Ellott
Project manager Katrina O’Brien
Cartography Will Pringle
Boat diagrams Robert Hick, modified by Shelley Blair
Front cover photo of Lisa Blair © Nathaniel C. T. Jackson; Back cover photos © Dean Koopman; All other photos © Lisa Blair unless otherwise credited.
Australian Geographic Editor-in-Chief Chrissie Goldrick
Australian Geographic Managing Director Jo Runciman
ISBN 978-1-922388-06-3 (print edition)
ISBN 978-1-922388-09-4 (e-book)
This book is proudly printed and bound in Australia from responsibly sourced and sustainable papers by Ligare Book Printers
The Australian Geographic Society was established to encourage the spirit of discovery and adventure, and to foster love for our natural heritage. The Society and the Australian Geographic journal sponsor scientific research and conservation, and a portion of the profits from our published products goes back into the Society. Become a member today by subscribing to the Australian Geographic journal.
Call now: 1300 555 176 (within Australia)
This book is dedicated to my grandpa,
Frank Edward Mitchell
23 July 1930 – 5 April 2018.
For always being my biggest fan, I love you dearly.
And to
Stephen De Pinna
7 August 1961 – 10 October 2017.
Thank you for welcoming me into your home, and into your family, when I arrived broken in South Africa. I will miss your laughter.
Going to sea has a siren call to some of us. We hear it as youngsters, stirred by the romance of stories of adventurous voyages of discovery and great Clippers being manhandled around the world. We imagine ourselves bravely hanging onto a yardarm a hundred feet above the deck, reefing a sail in a sleet-driven storm as we round the great Cape Horn, but at that early age we are tough and immortal, and ignorant.
When we eventually succumb and join our first vessel, be it a yacht or Merchantman, the reality is very different. For Lisa Blair, the discovery that a 68-foot Clipper yacht is actually smaller than the great waves that sweep across the Roaring Forties – which span the world south of all the great continents except Antarctica – was a revelation. How can a yacht, dwarfed by the waves, survive in these extreme watery Himalayan conditions? The Sydney to Hobart yacht race experiences them for a day or two as the competitors cross the Bass Strait, but on long passages, such as Cape Town to Sydney, the boats and crews have to deal with the same conditions for weeks on end.
Fewer people have sailed the Roaring Forties than have climbed Mount Everest. It is a baptism of facing nature in the raw. There is no escape. You cannot change channels on the TV because you don’t like it, you have to face it and deal with it. If you get things right, you’ll come out of it relatively unscathed. But you will be a changed person when you reach your destination. The experience of sailing those awesome seas gives a confidence, not just for sailing, but for life. You now know that you can take on challenges you had previously thought impossible.
Lisa experienced all this when she took part in the Clipper Race, sharing the adventure, the fear and the developing confidence that all Clipper crews find with experience. That confidence encouraged her to look for further adventures. This story is about a remarkable voyage by someone who developed her skills through experience and growing confidence to attempt and achieve something very special. It is a record that can never be taken from her. Yes, she was fearful at times. Only a liar claims they they were not frightened in the Roaring Forties and the Southern Ocean, but it is all about how you overcome that fear that really matters.
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston
Founder of The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world.
Contents
Foreword
Antarctic circumnavigation route map
Climate Action Now layout diagrams
1. When the sea took my soul
2. Discovering a dream
3. A solo challenge
4. The perfect boat
5. Flurry of activity
6. Final push to the startline
7. Farewell Australia
8. The cup of tea rule
9. Violent seas and knockdowns
10. Ferocious storm
11. Repairs and reflections
12. Complete isolation
13. Preparing for Cape Horn
14. Mother of all storms
15. Halfway and sailing home
16. Frustrations mounting
17. Iceberg Alley
18. Extreme squalls
19. The moment it all went wrong
20. Pan Pan
21. Do or die
22. Broken but still floating
23. Diverting to Cape Town
24. Far Eastern Mercury
25. Disaster to devastation
26. Building a jury rig
27. Finding a way to continue
28. Queasy departure
29. Living at extremes
30. Pushed to breaking point
31. Battling with blizzards
32. There was hope
33. Doubts and fears
34. Making history
35. Final push to success
36. The chaos of land
Epilogue
Appendix
Sponsors
Acknowledgements
Connect with Lisa

BRACING MYSELF for the next impact, I huddled on the bow of Climate Action Now as I looked at the devastation around me. I wasn’t sure how I would survive the night. A quick assessment of the situation told me I had just a fifty-fifty shot of surviving the next few minutes.
Wave after wave pounded into the hull of my boat. We were broken, and my mast had come down. Screeching metal and snapping ropes could be heard over the noise of the storm. Looking forward, I could see the twisted bow railing and the next piece of rigging wire that I needed to release. I had to climb over the railing and sit down on the bowsprit to free that rigging wire, exposing me to the ferocious eight-metre waves. But I was going into hypothermia and I couldn’t get my body to respond.
The next wave hit with enough force to rip my legs out from under me and drag me halfway down the decks. I was shaking violently now as I scrambled back to the relative safety the railing offered. I was looking down the barrel with a slim chance of success. Somehow, I would need to find enough strength to hold on, or accept that there would be no tomorrow for me. I had to face my fear.
I never really planned for my life to lead me to this moment. It seemed like sailing found me more than the other way around. Sometimes life just has a plan for you. I was born on 14 December 1984 at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, in Queensland. I spent my childhood immersed in nature: we lived on a bush property near the town of Nambour, on the Sunshine Coast. Our house was solar-powered, so we had limited time for TV and were encouraged to play in the bush or down by the creek. Without the distraction of screens, my imagination grew, and I knew no limits.
I spent hours going on adventures with my sister, Shelley, who is two years older than me. As a family, we would sit on the verandah during storms and watch the lightning flashing above the trees, breathing in the smell of the rain as it lashed our house. We hand-fed goannas, and tamed the wild scrub turkeys that ran around the house. At night I would lie in bed listening to the crescendo of crickets chirping, interrupted by the occasional dingo’s howl or the mating call of a koala.
At sunset every day, the fruit bats would migrate from their roosting spot to the nearby farms, passing directly overhead. We’d climb out our bedroom windows with Dad and make our way to the apex of the roof and wait; as if by clockwork, the fruit bats would come tearing through, making a huge racket above our heads. Dad would stretch up, and the fruit bats would split and fly on either side of him – like a magic trick.
Friday night was always movie night. Mum would run the generator to do the laundry, which also gave us enough power to watch a film on TV. We had apple pie and custard on those nights, and my sister and I would argue over what to watch. Life was good.
My first experience on a boat was when we went sailing on a trimaran belonging to my aunt and uncle, Roger and Elizabeth Blair. I was nine years old, and I recall that I