THE ENCHANTINGLY RAW nature of the Southern Ocean has challenged sailors for generations. Subjected to unrelenting storms and filled by waves of liquid mountains, you sail through testing waters containing snow and ice, and latitudes with names like the roaring forties, furious fifties and screaming sixties. It’s a place where not many sailors have dared to journey, and scarcely any challenge these waters alone. It’s the ultimate endurance test for any sailor and there are few who have the strength and determination to succeed on these waters. And yet it’s a place that calls to my heart.
I never really knew what that would mean for me. And I never understood the power of fear or the after-effects of a traumatic event until I was forced to survive one in the Southern Ocean, 1000 nautical miles (nm) (1852km) from land, alone, and in a storm the size of a cyclone. It was 2017 and I was sailing my 50-foot yacht Climate Action Now solo around Antarctica, attempting to become the first woman ever to complete the trip below 45°S. I was also sailing with the secondary goal of breaking the established record of 102 days, set by Russian sailor Fedor Konyukhov. Three-quarters of the way around Antarctica, on Day 72, in storm conditions, my 22m-long mast came crashing down at sunset. One of the stays had broken due to an unknown electrolysis issue, causing me to dismast.
The mast
