Record circumnavigation: Sailing around the world single-handed and non-stop at the age of 81
Kristina Müller
· 29.03.2020
William Hatfield, who everyone just calls Bill, has achieved a marvellous feat: The 81-year-old completed a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation at the end of February. And he did so against the prevailing wind direction: Hatfield sailed round the world in an east-west direction. Wilfried Erdmann is the only German sailor to have achieved this so far. It took him 343 days from August 2000 to July 2001.
Bill Hatfield made it all the way round in 259 days. His voyage started on 8 June 2019 off Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. He first sailed south past his home continent, then across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and finally set a north-westerly course.
Although the World Sailing Speed Record Council does not recognise age records, the standard definition is that the equator must be crossed at least once during a circumnavigation.
Hatfield therefore sailed to just off the Canary Islands in the North Atlantic and only turned south again there - heading for Cape Horn. After passing the infamous Cape, it took him a good 80 days to cross the Pacific before he arrived at "The Spit" on Australia's Gold Coast on the morning of 22 February. Friends and family were already waiting for him at the Southport Yacht Club and greeted him with relief and euphoria.
The former professional fisherman sailed around the world on a Northshore 38 called "L'Eau Commotion". It was not his first attempt to circumnavigate the world single-handed and without stopping. In his previous attempts, he always got far, but sometimes had to give up due to rig damage, sometimes because of storms.
With his successful completion of the mammoth voyage, the sailor from Brisbane replaces Brit Jeanne Socrates as the oldest non-stop circumnavigator to date. Socrates finished her circumnavigation in Victoria on the west coast of Canada in September 2019 at the age of 77. She had sailed around the world in a west-east direction with an anchor stop in New Zealand.
