Jessica Watson,17, is setting out to become the youngest person to sail solo non-stop and unassisted around the World.
It's the eve of Jessica Watson's return to civilization, after seven months spent sailing around the world, and the 16-year-old Australian brims with excitement.
"It's like the day before Christmas except I don't ever remember getting this excited about Christmas," she posted on her blog.
An estimated 50,000 fans will cheer as the intrepid mariner docks at the Opera House and steps wobbly from a 34-foot pink sailboat on which she will have lived, with stuffed animals as her only companions, for 210 days.
Watson, who has been dubbed "Australia's Salty Lady" by one publication, is timing her arrival into Sydney Harbor for late Saturday morning local time (Friday evening in the U.S.) and she'll receive a hero's welcome despite the controversy now swirling around any record she set during her voyage.
She will NOT, as she had originally hoped, officially be recognized as the youngest person to sail around the world alone, nonstop and unassisted-- even though she will now be the youngest person to have done precisely that.
The World Sailing Speed Record Council and other record-keeping organizations stopped recognizing "youngest" pursuits recently because they've become so controversial.
Thus, the official record seemingly will forever belong to fellow Australian Jesse Martin, who in 1999, at 18 and after 11 months at sea, completed a more drawn out circumnavigation without stopping or receiving physical assistance.
What's more, in the past few weeks, sailing purists have argued that Watson doesn't deserve the record anyway because she did not sail far enough north of the equator or log enough nautical miles -- the criteria to earn credit for a full circumnavigation -- during her voyage carried out largely in the Southern Ocean, beneath the populated continents.
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