Happy 80th birthday, Jeanne Socrates!

The headline went around the sailing world in September 2019: Done it! Jeanne Socrates is the oldest non-stop sailor! The then 77-year-old Brit Jeanne Socrates is still the oldest person to have circumnavigated the world single-handed and without stopping under sail along all five capes. It took her an unbelievably strenuous eleven months to sail around the world from west to east in her "Nereida", a twelve metre long Najad 380 that was ten years old at the time.

She has already sailed around the world several times, in whole or in part, when she sets off on her record attempt in 2018. She already had two failed attempts behind her: she made her first non-stop attempt from the Canary Islands in 2009, but had to stop for repairs in South Africa. She later sailed on anyway, via New Zealand to western Canada. She made her next non-stop attempt from there in October 2010. A capsize off Cape Horn forced them to make a stop in Ushuaia.

Nevertheless, she carried on and successfully continued her circumnavigation of the five great capes, but no longer without interruptions. In August 2012, she was back in her original harbour. Her third non-stop solo attempt was finally successful. From 22 October 2012 to 8 July 2013, she circumnavigated the world under sail, without engine power and without outside support - at the age of 70, she was also the oldest woman to circumnavigate the world non-stop, which earned her an entry in the Guinness Book of Records and numerous prizes.

She didn't actually have to prove anything to herself, she had already written her story, but she says: "Well, the first time I just wanted to know what it felt like. I had sailed a lot before, but never non-stop. The boat was also new at the time and it went so well that I thought I could just keep sailing - and it worked. After that, I didn't really want to try again." But, Socrates continues, "then someone told me that I could try to become the oldest person to sail solo around the world non-stop. That somehow appealed to me. Even though I was well aware that it wouldn't be any easier the second time round."

And she is proved right. On the way, her on-board instruments fail again and again, and the weather in the southern hemisphere sometimes plays havoc with her. Time and again she has to dodge hurricanes. After capsizing in a storm, she has to seek shelter on New Zealand's coast, where she lies on a mooring buoy to make at least makeshift repairs to the damage caused to the ship.

In the end, her arrival at the finish line was delayed time and time again. Days of calm off the coast of Canada slowed her down, and at times she was even carried away from the finish line by the current. When asked about the hardships of the past few months, she says in an interview with YACHT: "Well, I really had a lot of technical problems this time. Fortunately, I was able to keep sailing, but a lot of things on my boat are now broken. I almost have the feeling that it's only being held together by wire and tape in places." But, Socrates continues: "I never thought about giving up!" Pursue your goals and make the most of the time you have - this is the motto the passionate sailor lives by.

If you want to do something, go ahead and do it, don't waste your life, but make the most of the time you have!

The woman, who usually smiles harmlessly and appears so petite, is tough, which she also proves on other journeys. For example, on a trip from Hawaii to Alaska - she had previously taken part in the trans-Pacific race from California to Hawaii single-handed - she discovers seawater in the diesel and then spends five days dismantling the engine piece by piece before successfully reassembling it.

Or how she later had to steer by hand on her first round-the-world voyage from east to west from Fernando de Noronha in the southern Atlantic to the Caribbean because her wind pilot had corroded in the axle and the electric pilot had failed.

Yet she is not exactly one of the saltiest of sailors. In 2009, Wolf-Walter Ernst portrayed her in YACHT: growing up in west London, she went to school and university before working as a teacher. It wasn't until 1990 that she started sailing - with dinghies and surfboards. It had to be fast, sporty and wet. Yacht sailing seemed boring to her at first, she explains with a smile. Nevertheless, she and her husband Georg took part in a training cruise on the Solent for a week in 1994. The yacht was good, the skipper very good, she says. He must have been convincing. They stuck with it.

Three years later, they both took early retirement and bought a new Najad 361. In 1997, they began their journey from Sweden to the Mediterranean. In autumn 1999, they crossed the Atlantic and then reeled off the usual programme: Caribbean, US East Coast, Intracoastal Waterway. They were not drawn back across the Atlantic to their homeland. "Instead, we sailed via New York to Newfoundland," Socrates recalls. Then they turned round, headed south and visited the Bahamas and Cuba in 2001.

In the same year, Georg is diagnosed with cancer. He dies in March 2003. Jeanne Socrates realises that she wants to continue living and sailing on the ship. But that is not so easy. Despite all her experience, her partner has always been the problem solver on board. Now she has to get used to the fact that nothing gets done, no difficulty is overcome unless she does it herself.

Back at sea, their trips become longer, the areas more remarkable. First to Florida, then to the Pacific up to British Columbia and back south to Mexico, to the guitar festival in Zihuatanejo - this will become a permanent reference on her cruises. In spring 2006, Jeanne is back in San Francisco and plans another trip to Alaska - via Hawaii. She hears about the Transpac regatta, registers at the last minute and reaches the islands out in the Pacific in third place in her group.

In March 2007, again from Zihuatanejo and after the guitar festival, she sets off on a "fast circumnavigation", as she says. She actually circumnavigates the globe quite quickly, calling at the Marquesas, the Tuamotos, Tahiti and Tonga, reaching Cairns in Australia via Fiji and Vanuatu, stopping in Darwin and Bali and then hopping over Christmas Island, Cocos Keeling and Mauritius towards South Africa. From Namibia, she crosses the Atlantic to Trinidad and continues through the Panama Canal. She is back in the Pacific. After just 15 months, she leaves Acapulco to sail the last stretch to her starting point. 60 nautical miles from her destination, "Nereida" runs aground in heavy surf on a deserted Mexican beach.

When asked about the motivation that drives her to take such unusual journeys, she gives thoughtful, open answers. It is not frustration, not sadness, not distraction. First and foremost, it is her self-imposed consistency: not wanting to repeat anything, always daring to try something new, facing unfamiliar challenges. Jeanne Socrates likes to be at sea. She is intellectual, demanding, challenging and curious. And she is communicative. She has friends all over the world whom she cares for and endeavours to make. In the harbour, she loves talking to other sailors, almost loses herself in them and can even forget about her many jobs for hours at a time.

And what does it mean for her to get older? "For me, my age is just a number. All that really matters is your health and your mental attitude. I have the motto that you should always try to make the most of your life. That's what I live by. In short, if you have a dream, you should pursue it. If you want to do something, go for it and do it, don't waste your life, make the most of the time you have!"