16 year old sailor, Jessica Watson, is about to complete her solo round the world journey. She won’t qualify for the world record for the youngest person to do so though, why? Because apparently she’s too young :rolleyes:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1048582/no-record-for-jessica-watson
That’s according to the World Speed Sailing Racing Council rules, but I wonder what the Guiness Book would have to say about it? Will she be generally regarded as holding the record by the public?
Everyone involved knew about this rule before she set out. The World Speed Sailing Association no doubt has this rule to discourage minors from pushing themselves (or being pushed) to go past the limits of what their experience can handle. More cynically, perhaps the World Speed Sailing Association just doesn’t want the negative publicity when some kid gets killed trying to beat a record.
Seems reasonable to me.
Yes it seems that Jessica’s people have always known this, so a case of the media building something up only to tear it down?
Sounds like they were, at best, mislead by Watson and her publicist.
This is one of the blah stories of the year. There seem to be so many lone sailors etc that it has lost all impact for me.
What makes something a “World Record”?
The sailing organization has a sensible policy that they will no longer track “who is the youngest” because that is encouraging recklessness (and presumably opening them to liability).
That said, if someone asks “Who is the youngest person to circumnavigate the Earth?”, then her name will be the answer.
Unless you quibble over the distance and whether she actually fulfilled the requirements as stated.
For her to colloquial call that the World Record is as valid as anything else, just because it is not the WSSRC World Record.
Her Wikipedia page will say that she’s the youngest to circumnavigate the globe. That’s all that matters.
Although the papers here are reporting that she hasn’t sailed the distance required to validate this either:
*The 16-year-old will not have covered the distance required to meet strict criteria set by the official sailing record body in relation to circumnavigation of the globe, according to the Sail World website.
Jessica would fall short by about 2000 nautical miles because she did not go far enough north of the equator.*
I’m curious about that. The requirement is to sail 21600 nm, she will have sailed nearly 23000 nm but it’s not clear if that 23000 is point to point. For comparison Jesse Martin sailed 27000 nm.
As far as the record goes, Jesse Martin’s can’t be broken because the WSSRC have closed the category. They have also closed the category for the oldest round the world sailor. Even if Jessica was 18 years old and met the distance requirement she would still not be setting an official world record, which her people say they’ve always known.