“I had firmly decided on an attempt to fulfill my dream—to be the first woman to sail single-handed, nonstop around the world.” —Kay Cottee
The sound of chattering and splashing dolphins awakened Kay Cottee several hundred miles off the coast of Brazil. They were surrounding her yacht: six at the stern, six on each side, and a few ahead of the bow. It had been only two days since Kay had crossed the equator, and in just two more days she would reach the halfway point of her round-the-world journey. Kay dashed below to grab her camera to take a photo of this strange escort, but when she returned on deck she was startled to see two of the largest whales she had ever seen headed straight for the boat. She desperately spun the wheel to change the boat’s course, then with great relief watched as the whales dove just in time. They had been so close that their immense tails vanished into the sea only yards away from her. Within 20 minutes her dolphin escort disbanded, and it occurred to Kay that maybe the dolphins had formed a shield around the First Lady to ward off the whales.
Kay Cottee’s ship, the First Lady, at sea.
Courtesy of Kay Cottee
If anyone was destined to make her mark as a sailor, it was Kay Cottee, who was born in Australia on January 25, 1954. When Kay was only two weeks old, her parents, Jim and Joy McLaren, took her on her first sail in the company of her four big sisters. Kay’s childhood home in Sans Souci is a community south of Sydney located on a strip of land with bays on either side. When Kay was born, there were few homes and a lot of bush. Kay explored this scrubland and sailed almost every weekend with her family. When Kay was six years old, her father started building a 37-foot-long, wood-hulled yacht in their backyard. She spent day after day watching him. With fascination she keenly observed each stage of boat construction. Three years later, when the yacht was finished, her parents christened it Joy Too. Each weekend from then on Kay, her four sisters, and her mother joined Jim McLaren and his crew as they raced the Joy Too in Sydney Harbor.
Two years later, the McLarens moved to a waterfront house on Kogarah Bay. By this time Kay was bored with school, and sailing was her singular passion. She looked forward to sailing every chance she could get. When her father gave Kay and her sisters a well-used 11-foot racing dinghy for Christmas, she was the only one who wanted to sail it. It handled easily, was ideal for learning how to race solo, and flew through the water in strong winds. Day after day Kay sailed her VJ-class dinghy until a young man named Phillip moved next door. His barebones racing craft, called a “skate,” was even faster than her boat. It literally skimmed over the sea. Kay spent many days crewing with Phillip, who later married her older sister Elaine.
Each day at school Kay gazed out the classroom windows at the sea, daydreaming about sailing across the ocean. At home, instead of studying, she built model boats. Despite this lack of academic attention, she passed the exam for her intermediate certificate. Thus at the age of 16 she dropped out of school, having decided that she’d had enough education. A year later Kay entered secretarial school just as her sisters had done before her. It now appeared that the girl who dreamed of sailing had settled for a traditional life, especially after she married Neville Cottee, the son of one of her father’s racing teammates. Neville was nine years older than Kay and worked in his family’s plumbing business. She and Neville not only moved into a small apartment next door to his parents but also ate meals with them. Both worked in the family business. He worked as a plumber and Kay as a secretary in the family’s cramped office. Neville’s humorless parents disapproved of her vibrant, fun-loving personality which had been so appreciated at her home. Kay soon felt smothered by this new life. She began to question if it was the life she was destined to live and wondered if she could still become the adventurous sailor she had long dreamed of being.
The first step in changing her path came when she and Neville bought the hull of 22-foot sailboat, docked it in a marina, and moved aboard. Living conditions were cramped, but at least they were on their own. Away from his family they enjoyed the company of another young sailing couple who lived at the marina. Each day away from Neville’s family during the three months it took to make the boat seaworthy allowed Kay’s sense of purpose to slowly resurface. After the boat was ready, she and Neville set off on a cruise. Kay loved the journey, but it was all too brief. Before she knew it she was back to the same old job and stifling life with the in-laws.
After this taste of freedom, Kay was now motivated to take another step toward her goal by building a bigger boat. She and Neville soon began construction on the hull of a 36-foot yacht. After that was completed, Neville returned to plumbing, but for another 13 months Kay continued working on the yacht. She completed one task after another, from installing the deck and masts, to outfitting the cabin, to setting up the rigging. Local male boat builders were impressed by Kay’s skill and knowledge. By the time the yacht, christened Whimaway, was launched, Kay was a minor celebrity among the Sydney boating community. This was exactly what she and Neville needed to get their new charter business on its feet. It also was what Kay required to make an escape from her unhappy life. Running the charter business allowed Kay to earn an income. She left Neville and slept on the yacht, in her car, or at a sister’s home until she found an apartment. At the age of 27, Kay was on her own for the first time, and it felt just right.
She and Neville sold the yacht and split the money. In a stroke of luck, the Whimaway’s new owner asked Kay to continue managing the yacht as a charter boat, and soon other yacht owners made similar requests. Kay not only had a new career, but she also possessed a newfound confidence in managing her own life.
Now Kay was ready to focus on preparing to become the first woman to sail solo, nonstop, and unassisted around the globe. When a friend offered the use of his 35-foot yacht for two weeks in exchange for staying in her apartment, Kay readily accepted the offer. Her friend Linda agreed to help Kay sail on the 440-mile trip across the Tasman Sea to Lord Howe Island. Because Linda could only join Kay on the journey to Lord Howe Island, Kay had to sail back alone. During the entire 62-hour voyage she stayed awake and discovered, despite the lack of rest, that she loved sailing solo. Kay, now ready to accomplish her goal of sailing around the world, sold her charter boat business and bought the hull and deck of a 36-foot cavalier offshore racing yacht.
“I started fitting it out between odd jobs on boats to pay for rent, food, and timber. By nature a bower bird, I had kept just about everything that had broken down on the charter yachts, and I spent weeks getting everything to work again: bilge and water pumps, stove, winches, and so on,” Kay later recounted.
Kay had almost completed the construction when she decided to compete in the single-handed event in the Solo Trans-Tasman Yacht Race. Kay’s outgoing personality would now work to her advantage. She sold Marcus Blackmore, the owner of Australia’s leading health care products company, on the idea of sponsoring her in exchange for naming her yacht after one of his products, a facial cleanser named Cinnamon Scrub. With only three months to get the boat finished before the race, Kay worked around the clock. With the help of her parents and friends, Cinnamon Scrub was seaworthy by the beginning of January. Next, Kay qualified for the race by sailing solo for 500 miles. During the 10-day-long Trans-Tasman race, Kay labored furiously, changing the sails 52 times and waking up once every hour during the night to check her course. Though she didn’t win the race, she proved herself to be an exceptional solo sailor.
Now more determined than ever to circumnavigate the globe, Kay persuaded Marcus Blackmore to sponsor her around-the-world journey. She convinced him to support her financially and assist in raising funds for the Life Education Program. This organization, which promoted healthy lifestyles for young people, was excited to have Kay’s help. In turn Kay would be a great role model for kids, giving her voyage more than just a personal focus.
First she had to prepare her yacht, now renamed Blackmore’s First Lady, for the long sail ahead. Every part of the boat had to be checked to see if it would withstand the wear and tear of months on the high seas. Kay reinforced the keel and added extra watertight bulkheads. Radar and radar-detecting devices, needed for detecting large ships, were installed. She purchased and packed a six-month supply of food and water. Other provisions included emergency medical supplies and fuel for the generator and auxiliary motor. Also squeezed aboard were tools and materials needed to make repairs, including extra sailcloth. By the time Kay was finally packed, there was barely room for her to fit in the yacht’s small cabin. However, this didn’t concern her, because she knew space would open up as her food and water disappeared.
Kay also had to set up a communications network with her land support crew and with Peter Sutton of Showboat Productions, who would handle her publicity and set up interviews. She spent hour after hour double-checking every detail, no matter how minor, to ensure a successful journey.
Kay set sail on November 29, 1987.
“I looked out over the bow and across the waters, trying to picture what lay ahead. It seemed to me I was looking into the mouth of a long, long tunnel,” she recalls in a book about the voyage. Before the end of her first week at sea, she had to face her first big challenge. For several days there had been squalls with torrential rain and 40- to 45-mile-per-hour gusts. These rough and variable conditions forced her to frequently change sails. This work was so time consuming she barely had enough time to navigate, keep a look out for ships, eat, and sleep. Next, for several days at the end of December, the First Lady was buffeted by 55- to 60-knot winds and big waves. It was a bone-jarring ride, and Kay began to worry as her yacht started showing signs of wear. She fixed a leak and attempted to stop the loud vibrating noise made by the wobbling of the shaft that connects the rudder to the steering wheel. Unable to stop the wobble, she had to hope the steering mechanisms would hold together through the rest of the voyage.
As she neared Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America, the First Lady was once more battered by strong squalls. One was so powerful that it knocked the yacht over flat on its side. As soon as Kay picked herself up, she went out onto the deck secured in safety harnesses. There she saw a big crack in the boom, the long pole attached to the bottom edge of the mainsail. Between squalls, Kay lashed another pole onto the boom, hoping it would hold it together until she could do a proper fix after the weather calmed down.
On January 19, 1988, after two weeks of rough sailing and frigid weather, Kay finally rounded Cape Horn, Chile. Many shipwrecks have occurred in this treacherous passage, especially when it is shrouded in fog. Kay was finally blessed with sunny weather. As she sailed by the shore she marveled at the view of snow-capped mountains and at the black-and-white albatrosses that circled her yacht.
Kay had now entered the Atlantic Ocean, and she set her course north. The official route for a round-the-world sail required that she cross the equator and pass around both São Paulo and São Pedro islands, part of a chain of rocky islands 500 miles off Brazil’s coast. When past this point Kay celebrated with wine and a meal of freshly baked bread and canned crab. She had made it halfway through her journey with very little damage to the boat—and without suffering unbearable loneliness.
She now had an immense stretch of water to cross on her route across the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. During the few next weeks, she sailed through one squall after another, which allowed Kay to replenish her freshwater supply—she collected rainwater that poured off the mainsail. When the weather turned calmer, she caught up on sleep and started writing the first chapter of her book First Lady. Due to her new location, radio conditions were better, so she was able to communicate with friends. This helped stave off loneliness and allowed her to savor her journey. One calm, windless night Kay witnessed the most beautiful starry sky of the entire trip. “The sky was ink black except for millions and millions of stars all of which were reflected in the mirror of the ocean … everywhere I looked around, above, below, behind, there were stars shining,” Kay describes in First Lady.
Kay relaxing during a break from bad weather.
Courtesy of Kay Cottee
At the start of April, as the First Lady neared Cape Horn at the southern tip of Africa, Kay found herself sailing in rough seas again. The boat was tossed by immense waves and pummeled by strong winds. The noise became so deafening that Kay couldn’t sleep. Then the winds blew harder, and the First Lady was soon dwarfed by waves as tall as five-story buildings. As Kay rocked about inside the cabin considering her precarious situation, she felt the bow rise higher and higher, until she sensed that the First Lady was almost standing straight up on one end. When the boat finally leveled out, Kay realized in horror that it was totally out of the water, suspended for a moment in the air. Instantly she braced her hands on the ceiling and her feet on the floor to avoid injury as the First Lady landed with a thunderous crash. Though she had avoided injury, Kay wondered if the boat had been damaged.
Secured by two harness lines, she scrambled on deck and discovered with relief that everything was intact. Two days later Kay rounded the cape in rough weather, but the worst was not over yet. Less than a week later she was struggling to control the First Lady as the yacht raced along, propelled by 75-mile-per-hour winds. All of a sudden the First Lady was knocked over flat, the mast plunged underwater. Caught in the grip of a mammoth wave, the boat was pushed along in this position until it was able to right itself. Clothes and gear were scattered about the cabin. Water poured in from an open hatch. Kay secured the hatch and was busy bailing out the water when the boat was knocked flat again. Laying atop her scattered belongings, with her kettle and other items from the galley flying through the air, she couldn’t help but laugh.
When righted, the First Lady continued to roar along at high speed. Kay realized she must decrease the speed to avoid damaging her vessel. In the inky darkness, she scrambled onto the deck, secured by harness lines, to check for any damage. In the strong winds the raindrops striking her hands felt as sharp as knives. Just as she was adjusting the sails and preparing to drop the anchor to slow down her yacht, she noticed a light in the distance. Realizing that she was on a collision course with a large ship, Kay turned on the lights and set off a flare to alert them of her presence. Trembling in fear, she watched as the massive vessel passed within 1,000 feet of her small craft. Moments later her boat was knocked over again, and Kay found herself washed overboard and plunged underwater. As she held her breath she felt as if her lungs might burst. Suddenly the boat righted itself, yanking her out of the water and washing her back onto the deck. Kay was now utterly exhausted and battered from head to toe, but she was alive and determined to sail on.
On June 5, 1988, Kay sailed past the finish line in Watsons Bay and into Sydney Harbor where she was greeted by tens of thousands of people, including her family, friends, the prime minister’s wife, and the premier of New South Wales. This was a powerful experience after 189 days alone at sea. On shore Kay was awarded the Australian of the Year Award and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia.
Peter Sutton, who had served as the publicist for her round-the-world sail, now took on the job of her manager as she started her new role as a public speaker, working to raise $1 million for the Life Education charity. In 1989 Kay published First Lady, the book about her journey; many years later she wrote another book about her life after her return home, All at Sea on Land. Peter and Kay married shortly after her trip, and together they have a son, Lee. Kay’s courageous journey became an ongoing inspiration to other women who dream of sailing solo around the globe.