Teenager Watson finishes 37th in Sydney-Hobart (barfer)

I hates the lamestream media. The story goes across Murrica: Girl comes 37th in boat race. Wow!

Why it is a story.

The Sydney to Hobart is one of the three badass offshore yacht races in the world. (along with the Fastnet from Portsmouth and the Middle Sea race from Malta)

You aint nobody in Australian yacht racing until you've done a S2H.

Basically anyone can enter. The 100' supermaxis finish in 2 days, the 45-70' boats take 3, the faster 30-40s take 4, ans the slower boats are still out there with one more sleep to go before they finish.
yacht tracker (It's like watching a very slow videogame)

While one of the supermaxis will take line honours and get the Teev coverage, the real race is a handicap race, which theorertically any boat can win (The fact that handicap is the real contest is established by the fract that the prize, the Tattersals Cup, is the ugliest piece of silverwre in the world)

This year Jessica Watson, who two years ago, at the age of 16, became the youngest person to sail solo, unassisted, around the world, entered and recruited a group of 9 young sailors under the age of 21.

Jess was never going to win either trophy as her ride, a Sydney 38 One Design, was too small to take line honours, and too new to get a low enough rating to win on handicap.

The question was, how would she fare against the 7 other Sydney 38 yachts?

Well, the Sydney 38s proved amazingly close, from the start, six looked competative. After day one, four could not be separated, swapping postitions 2 to 5 in the class all the way done the coast. On the final night, Jessica's Ella Baché took second spot and held it around the Tasman Island lighthouse, turning north at Caoe Raoul leading the third placed boat by just 3/10ths of a nautical mile (after 600 of them) and finishing just 40 minutes behind the class leader.

The Kidz done good.

Rolex Sydney Hobart - Ella Baché finishes second in division

Rolex Sydney Hobart : They came; they saw; they conquered; so they dunked Jessica

Sport Jessica Watson finishes her first Sydney to Hobart with a traditional dunking at Constitution dock

(It's a sign of the crew's affection for the person who's been driving them)

1 posted on 12/30/2011 6:42:25 AM PST by Oztrich Boy

I hates the lamestream media. The story goes across Murrica: Girl comes 37th in boat race. Wow!

Yet, she has other attributes.

2 posted on 12/30/2011 6:52:19 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Ceterum autem censeo, Obama delenda est.)

To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Agree! When’s the photo shoot?

3 posted on 12/30/2011 7:01:40 AM PST by WellyP (REAL)

4 posted on 12/30/2011 7:10:40 AM PST by WellyP (REAL)

After last Memorial Day weekend. Just for laughs I Googled “Danika Patrick almost wins Indy 500”. I found an actual headline that said that.

5 posted on 12/30/2011 7:11:29 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)

To: Oztrich Boy; Lonesome in Massachussets; WellyP

So they did turn in a competent performance, good on them.

This isn’t that same girl who required a multi-million buck rescue from the Southern Ocean recently?

Am I just being too jaded and cynical when my pavlovian, knee-jerk, reflex action is to assume this was done for the publicity, endorsements, book & film deals and modeling contracts?

I just keep thinking back to the nineties when, for about a year or two, there was a mania to see who could be the youngest kid to fly coast-to-coast. Finally, it ended in tragedy when the young daughter of a publicity-chasing con man and a New Age ditz was killed in a crash.

6 posted on 12/30/2011 7:11:51 AM PST by sinanju

To: Lonesome in Massachussets; WellyP

I feel required to point out that you a perving on the picture of a 15 year old girl

7 posted on 12/30/2011 7:15:49 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (Whatever happened to that Amy Summerland sailing chick?)

So they did turn in a competent performance, good on them.

More than competant. Before the race. Jessica said that while a class win was the aim, she'd be happy to beat her sailing coach, Chris Lewin, who was sailing an identical Sydney 38 and finished 5th in class, just 31 minutes behind her (2d ,3d, 4th, 5th - 31 minutes apart after 4 days hard sailing)

This isn’t that same girl who required a multi-million buck rescue from the Southern Ocean recently?

No, that was another girl, who had no business being at sea. I said at the time, that in 5-10 years young Ashley would be a forgotten footnote in sailing history, and Jessica would be a sailing star.

Am I just being too jaded and cynical when my pavlovian, knee-jerk, reflex action is to assume this was done for the publicity, endorsements, book & film deals and modeling contracts?

Yes, you are. It's certainly being done for publicity and endorsments, but that's how sailing works. You don't think that that writing on the boat is there for no reason, do you?

But I think she's doing it because that's the job she wants to do in life.

8 posted on 12/30/2011 7:43:15 AM PST by Oztrich Boy (Whatever happened to that Amy Summerland sailing chick?)

I don't know why you think I am “perving”, I was merely pointing out her obvious appeal to popular press. It's like when an (ugly) Hungarian teenage girl finishes 47th in the World Chess Olympiad, she is trumpeted as the girl who beats men at their own game.

If you are a sailing enthusiast, I am sure you appreciate that competitive sailing is a grueling athletic endeavor and that women will never successfully compete with men, for the same reason that they cannot compete with men in the decathlon.

9 posted on 12/30/2011 7:52:06 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Ceterum autem censeo, Obama delenda est.)

Her wealthy, connected family probably knows someone at the magazine.

10 posted on 12/30/2011 9:10:47 AM PST by Godwin1

To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Well some crew positions require bulk and maximum upper body strength, but not all.

2010 Audi Hamilton Island, SB3 class. The railmeat are bulky chaps, the skipper less so
And the wind and spray screen (aka bowman) is a 17 year old girl.

named Jessica Watson

Also 2011 Mini Fastnet from Douarnenez

11 posted on 12/30/2011 4:38:33 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (Whatever happened to that Amy Summerland sailing chick?)

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