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Jeanne Socrates Is Halfway Around

Jeanne Socrates is 160 days into her attempt to become the oldest person to sail nonstop and alone around the world. As it turns out, 160 days is the halfway point.

“I had a celebratory halfway breakfast of a few delicious stem-ginger biscuits I found by my bunk,” Socrates said on her blog. “These were a very nice surprise and went well with some orange juice as I settled down to rest.”

Socrates is also roughly halfway between South Africa and Australia. Once she rounds the South Cape on New Zealand, she’ll hang a left and start climbing north in her long Pacific journey back to Victoria, British Columbia.

Jeanne's track
Jeanne Socrates and Nereida are plowing through the Indian Ocean toward Western Australia.
© 2019 S/V Nereida

As we reported about a month ago, Socrates has been having trouble with her mainsail, and has been using a jury rig. “Lots of different jobs needing to be done by way of preparation before I can actually get to sewing the tabling onto the mainsail,” she wrote a few days ago. “Looking at organizing tying of mainsail to enable releasing the top section to work on while seas are relatively calm.”

Jeanne Socrates in full ninja-selfie mode.
© 2019 Jeanne Socrates

Meanwhile . . .

After checking in with us recently, Randall Reeves is about 10 days from Cape Horn. But it appears that he’s waiting out a nasty-looking low hugging the west coast of South America.

Randall Reeves was headed for Cape Horn on Wednesday amid what turned out to be a growing low-pressure system.
© 2019 figure8voyage.com
Here was Reeves yesterday at around 12 p.m. local time . . .
© 2019 figure8voyage.com
. . . And then yesterday at 1:25 p.m. . . .
© 2019 figure8voyage.com
. . . And finally at around about 9 p.m. yesterday. While we haven’t confirmed this, Reeves’ tracker appears to indicate that he made an about-face to get away from the purple blob. We’re going to stay tuned for his blog post for a full update, and wish him safe sailing.
© 2019 figure8voyage.com

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