20th December 2020
Ella’s Pink Lady in Sydney after Jessica Watson’s solo circumnavigation
Credit: Saberwyn/Wikimedia
Mail Online is reporting that the yacht used by would-be round-the-world record-setter Jessica Watson has been left to rot outside the maritime museum where it has resided for almost a decade.
In 2009, then 16-year-old Watson, from Australia, sailed her yacht Ella’s Pink Lady around the globe in 210 days to unofficially become the youngest circumnavigator. The feat also saw her named as 2011’s Young Australian of the Year.
That same year the distinctive pink yacht was jointly purchased by Queensland and Australian governments for AUS$300,000, with the intention of a permanent exhibition dedicated to Watson’s feat at the Queensland Maritime Museum.
As the year staggers to a close - and what a year it has been - it is timely to offer a prayer that some of its more irksome features will not be revisited upon us in 2021. It would be a good thing, for example, if populist premiers devoid of policies of any substance did not close state borders every time someone sneezed in some far distant corner of the land. We get it - you re tough, fearless leaders prepared to die in a ditch to defend the good people of your state - unless of course, there s a game of football involved, which is a completely different matter altogether.
Australian sailor Jessica Watson sailed solo around the globe in 2009 to 2010
The now 27-year-old was the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe at 16
The pink yacht she used has been abandoned and left to rot, riddled with mould
Ella s Pink Lady was sold to the Queensland Maritime Museum for $300,000
It is now sitting outside the museum, covered in mould and has started leaking
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Ella s Pink Lady, the yacht Jessica Watson sailed around the world as a teenager, is now worth a fraction of the price paid by the State and Federal Governments. Sources told
The Sunday Mail, the yacht, which cost $300,000 in 2011 and was entrusted to the Queensland Maritime Museum, had mould in the cabin and was leaking. It has been moved from an undercover shed into the open and a replica cabin built by volunteers has been mothballed. It s the latest in a series of bad news for the QMM, which is facing permanent closure after a $100,000 cyber attack, a workplace bullying compensation payout, closure during COVID and the resignation of CEO Emma Di Muzio, who is not accused of any wrongdoing.