Jessica watson
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Kay Cottee
Kay Cottee 1993, by Pamela Thalben-Ball, oil on canvas. Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Gift of the artist 1999.
More information about Kay Cottee can be found in the AWAP register.
The daughter of Jim and Joy McLaren, Kay Cottee was born into a yachting family and was taken sailing for the first time when just a few weeks old. With her parents and three sisters Linda, Elaine and Jan, Kay would race in Sydney Harbour on board her father's self-built yacht, the Joy Too. It was here, on the water, that she felt most at peace.
Kay disliked school and remembers, 'I spent a lot of time gazing out to sea from my classroom window, or sitting on the Heads at Botany Bay, dreaming I was setting off across the ocean'. She left school half way through fifth form and, like her three sisters, went to secretarial college. At seventeen she was engaged to her father's best friend's son, Neville, who was nine years her senior. They married after her eighteenth birthday.
Kay lived with Neville in Bondi next door to his parents' home where they both worked for
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Kay Cottee AO
Kay Cottee AO (b. 1954) became the first woman in history to complete a solo, non-stop and unassisted voyage around the world. Born into a sailing family, Cottee spent weekends racing her father's yacht on Sydney Harbour. After finishing school, she built boats and established a yacht charter business. On 29 November 1987, Cottee set off from Sydney Harbour in her boat Blackmores First Lady. During the 189 days of the 23,000 nautical mile voyage, she faced icebergs, gale force winds and whales as well as homesickness and loneliness. Washed overboard off the southern coast of Africa, she was saved by two safety lines. Her only contact with the outside world was by radio, and while the demands of the journey often left her with little time to sleep, she staved off boredom by knitting and writing poetry. In the course of the voyage she broke seven records including the longest time spent alone by a woman at sea, the greatest non-stop distance travelled at sea by a lone woman, and the fastest time and speed for a solo circumnavigation by a woman. Sailing back into Syd
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Kay Cottee AO
Fee Range: $10001 to $15000
Kay Cottee AO's Biography
Kay Cottee AO was the first woman to sail solo around the world. As a child Kay Cottee sailed with her father and helped him build yachts. She started ocean racing when she was 11. Kay left school at 16 to find work, but her love for the sea led her to start a yacht charter business. Kay built First Lady, the 11-metre yacht on which she would sail around the world.
In 1987, at the age of 34, Kay Cottee set off on her 189 days, 22,000 nautical miles journey to sail solo non-stop around the world from west to east. On this voyage she set the record not only as the first woman to circumnavigate the world but for the longest time at sea by a woman, the longest non-stop distance sailed by a woman, and the fastest time and speed for solo circumnavigation by a woman.
Kay Cottee's voyage was a heroic achievement. She had no fresh food so for six months, and had to survive on dried food. She had to wake up every hour to check her course and watch for ships that may have bee
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