A huge crowd of well-wishers and a Royal Marines Band welcomed home record-breaking round the world sailor Naomi James 40 years ago today.
The 29-year-old, who lived in Devon, had just set a new record time of 272 days for sailing solo around the globe. She had also become only the second woman to achieve the feat and the first to do it ‘the hard way’, sailing around the treacherous Cape Horn.
Her 27,000-mile journey ended as she crossed the finishing line in Dartmouth at 9-11am on June 8th, 1978. It had been nine months since setting sail from the same spot in her 53ft yacht “Express Crusader” in the hope of fulfilling a dream.
Looking fit and relaxed, she stepped ashore to be greeted by her husband Rob James, who taught her to sail and learned of her ambition to sail solo around the globe on their honeymoon. During the epic journey she endured weeks without a working radio, survived a capsize and almost lost her mast during gales in the Southern Ocean.
Despite these ordeals she persevered, following the hazardous ‘clipper route’ around the globe to navigate around the three great capes – Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Australia’s Cape Leeuwin and, most dangerous of all, South America’s Cape Horn. Her record time of 272 days shaved two days off the previous record held by Sir Francis Chichester.
Interviewed by a waiting pack of reporters, she admitted there were times when she considered giving up, especially after suffering serious damage to her rigging on the approach to Cape Horn: “In my mind was the thought: ‘How can you go round the Horn with a ship that’s not seaworthy?’ – so I thought about turning back,” she said.
Instead she pressed on, enduring some of the toughest days on the final leg of her epic voyage: “For the past 10 days since the Azores it’s been murderous,” she said. When asked what she was most looking forward to after nine months at sea, she said it was a long hot bath and a full night’s uninterrupted sleep.
Despite her record-breaking achievement, Mrs James was a relative newcomer to sailing. Born and raised on a landlocked sheep farm in New Zealand, she didn’t learn to swim until she was 23 and didn’t sail anything until she was 26. It was only after meeting her husband-to-be, experienced yacht skipper Rob James, in 1975 that she learned to sail and, with just six weeks’ experience, decided she wanted to sail solo around the world.
Her yacht was loaned by Scottish sailor Chay Blyth, a good friend of her husband, and renamed “Express Crusader” after the Daily Express newspaper (whose logo is a knight crusader) raised sponsorship for the voyage. In recognition of her achievement, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979 and featured in an episode of “This Is Your Life” the same year.
In 1980 she was reunited with the Express Crusader, now renamed Kriter Lady, for a single-handed transatlantic race, finishing as the first woman home in a new women’s record time of 25 days 19 hours. In 1982 she and her husband sailed together to win the 2,000-mile Round Britain Race, but she suffered horrendous seasickness, possibly because she was in the early stages of pregnancy, and afterwards announced she was giving up sailing for the foreseeable future.
Sadly, tragedy struck the following year when her husband fell overboard and drowned off Salcombe, Devon, just 10 days before their daughter was born. In 2005, British yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur set the current women’s record for a solo non-stop round the world voyage at 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes, making the trip in a purpose-built 75ft trimaran.