Jesse Martin
Jesse Martin Circumnavigation
Jesse Martin – the youngest person to sail solo around the world.
Jesse Martin is just like any kid looking for expression and sailing around the world was his way of doing that. It started with a dream and he honestly believed that he could sail around the world and when people said he could not do it, he wanted to do it because they said it could not be done. He took eleven months to sail around the earth single-handed. His yacht was the Lionheart, a 34 foot boat. It was not about sailing, it was just doing what he wanted to do and achieving a goal. We are capable of doing things if we set our minds to it.
In the beginning all he had was a dream – his mom had to mortgage the home and he went looking for sponsors. A lot of people supported Jesse but also a lot of people thought his parents were being irresponsible for letting him go. His first plan was to stop at various places but then he thought there might be the opportunity to break a record. Jesse Martin always loved the sea and adventure – when he was fifteen he went to New Guinea on a kayaking adventure trip that he organised himself. In the west young people do not have a rites of passage – we are not passing our own tests, we are passing other people’s tests.
Jesse says that his mind plays tricks on him – half way through doing something he forgets what he was doing, it all merges into one. When you go out in the ocean, your boat becomes your home – it sometimes is like living in a washing machine. First of all you know what you want to do, Jesse was looking to do an adventure and sent his CV to his sponsors. They are not so sure about Jesse at the Sandringham Yacht Club and Mistral – he submitted his plans and asked for sponsorship. He went and looked for a boat to sail around the world and jesse martin was the youngest person to Circumnavigate solo in the lionheart. There was a lot of fear about the boat because the yacht had never been in the water until the day he had left.
He asks a nutritionist for advice and he has to plan for more than three hundred days of food. Food kept him busy out on the ocean. The pancake ritual kept him busy and it gave him a reward for all his hard work. Towards the end of the circumnavigation he is starting to run out of food and has to eat all the food that he does not like. Traditional circumnavigation means going with the wind around the southern ocean and keeping the five capes to your port. He sails under new Zealand and catches the swells and winds to South America. He gets through the first of his bad weather, and has to go south into colder weather to get around Cape Horn.
He gets through one of the toughest parts of the circumnavigation getting to Cape Horn and he gains confidence in himself to complete the circumnavigation. He is on the way home, and going around South Africa gets the worst hiding of his voyage. The storms brew up and the barometer is dropping quickly and then it hits him, storms with winds to fifty or sixty knots and seas up to twenty meters. He crosses down the bottom of the Indian Ocean to Australia and sails to Melbourne and home.
Jesse Martin’s book has sold well and is firmly entrenched into the best seller list in Australia. He would read his journal and remember little things that would trigger his memory. Jesse seems ordinary to other people but does this amazing extraordinary thing. If Jesse Martin can do it, then anyone can. The trip has inspired other people and inspired them to do what they wish to do.