Jeanne Socrates has sailed enough ocean miles, 160,000, to circumnavigate the world seven times. Now she wants to establish a new record. Socrates has already been recognized by Guinness World Records and nautical associations, like the Cruising Club of America, as the oldest woman to circumnavigate the globe in a non-stop, solo, unassisted sailing trip. She completed the trip in 2013, Victoria to Victoria in 258 days.
On Oct. 17, the 74-year-old English woman will leave Ogden Point again to complete another circumnavigation. But this time she wants to become the oldest person to sail around the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted. The record is held by yachtsman Minoru Saito of Japan, who completed a successful sail around the globe in June, 2005 at the age of 71, according to his website.
“If I had waited just one year to do the last one I would have been the oldest person and not just the oldest woman,” said Socrates in an interview at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club.
She was not born on the water or raised as the offspring of a sailing family. She was a mathematics professor at a university in London, England, where she has three grandkids from a son and a daughter. “And they don’t really understand what I’m doing.” (Read more.)