Woman, 18, sets sail for world

Press, 30 May 1985, Page 6

Woman, 18, sets sail for world

NZPA-AP New York An 18-year-old woman kissed her parents .goodbye yesterday and set out in an eight-metre sloop on a solo, two-year voyage around the world. Tania Aebi, who sailed the Atlantic last year from Falmouth, England, with her father and some friends in a 29-day passage, said that she was confident and felt safe in her boat, Varuna, which means God of Water in Hindi. “This boat can take me any place,” she said just before pulling out of the South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan, “but me, I have to handle it properly.” Her first port will be Bermuda next month, “depending on the wind.”

She will go through the Panama Canal, the Pacific and Indian Oceans, around the Cape of Good Hope, on to Brazil and back to New York. Asked by reporters whether she was afraid of the world’s oceans and seas, she replied, “I thought about it, but if I must die, I must die. I’m not going to sit around and do nothing.” Her father, Ernst, aged 47, a graphic artist who lives in New York, said that he gave her the sloop in lieu of a college education. He is formerly from Switzerland 20 years ago and is a naturalised citizen. Ms Aebi, who was born in the United States, said that she had learned celestial and coastal navigation and had a radio in case she needed help.