Olivia Wyatt let go of the shore in the summer of 2019, a decision slow to arrive that was part obsession, part dare, and part promise to herself. She readied herself and her sailboat, a 34-foot Ta Shing Panda named Juniper, for a solo Pacific crossing from San Diego to Honolulu.
She was a relatively new boatowner—the 30-year-old, full-keel cutter was her first (if you don’t count her Sunfish, which she named Queequeg) and remains her only. Back then she was a relatively experienced sailor as something one studies, less so as something one does. She had sailed alone before, but only a sum of 36 nautical miles and six hours. She was admittedly afraid to sail alone, which is in large part why she finally let go of that shore.
She is today, four years later, a provisional entrant in the 2026 Golden Globe Race (GGR), one of four Americans and the only woman in the field thus far. The race takes competitors from Les Sables-d’Olonne and back via four rendezvous gates and the great capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin, and Horn, solo and nonstop. In total, Wyatt has now sailed 16,000 nautical miles, 9,000 of them solo, mostly in temperate Pacific waters. The longest she has spent at sea is 23 days. Finishing the Golden Globe will require eight to ten months at sea.
