Sea Today Australia’s Jessica Watson marks thirty days at sea as she continues on her quest to become the youngest person ever to sail solo around the world. After sailing from Sydney on October 18 Watson has been heading roughly north east towards the equator in a bid to tick off the first of many requirements necessary for her voyage to qualify for ‘around the world’ status.
Watson and her yacht Ella’s Pink Lady must cross the equator at least once during the voyage spending time in both hemispheres. From there Jessica intends to travel a further 200 nautical miles north rounding Kiribati Island before again turning south towards Cape Horn.
In February of this year 121.5 MHz EPIRBs stopped being detected by the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system making them effectively obsolete. Despite this the units are still detectable by many commercial aircraft and, if activated, can result in a full scale search and rescue operation. Due, in part, to a rise in false alarms from this type of beacon they will become illegal to use one for any purpose after 1 February 2010.
