Jazz Turner: "The dream of sailing has kept me alive"

The 27-year-old British sailor Jazz Turner recently received two honours that were awarded to sailing legends on the island before her. The list of her predecessors reads like a "Who's Who" of sailing, including Sir Robin Knox-Johnston and Pip Hare, Jimmy Cornell and Jeanne Socrates. However, Turner, who is little known in this country, did not receive her awards for a trip around the globe, but for a good 2,000 highly challenging nautical miles.

With disability solo around Great Britain and Ireland

Brighton lies in bright sunshine at midday on 30 June 2025. Jazz Turner is greeted by cheers as she enters the harbour after 28 days at sea. Friends, family, sponsors and followers have gathered to greet the 26-year-old engineer from Seaford. With her 27-foot Albin Vega named "Fear", Turner has just become the first wheelchair user to circumnavigate Great Britain and Ireland solo, unassisted and non-stop. She has 2,070 nautical miles behind her - and a month in which she pushed herself to her absolute limits.

It is a triumph - and a temporary victory against the limitations imposed on the young woman by a treacherous disease. Turner lives with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that leads to joint instability, fainting spells and cramps, accompanied by severe pain. Her life expectancy is very limited. On land, she is dependent on a wheelchair and can only consume limited amounts of food and fluids. But on the water, she finds freedom - and a reason to carry on.

One trip, many obstacles

"This voyage is to show that with a little imagination and a lot of hard work, there are no limits to what can be achieved," said Turner at the start of her project. However, her journey, which was successfully completed in summer 2025, would probably have pushed even sailors without disabilities to their limits.

In September 2024, Turner buys Albin Vega 27 and calls it "Fear". The name will denote the two ends of what the project does with its constitution, because the four letters of "Fear" stand for "Face everything and rise". Face everything and rise; Turner will have said this to himself many times.

A trip around the United Kingdom and Ireland is expected to bring strong winds and storms, choppy tidal seas and those with wave crests, and rain to boot. But these navigational challenges are not her greatest. Even before the trip, she doubts a little about its feasibility. "Just getting to this point was a marathon," she wrote on her Instagram profile at the end of May, just a few days before she was due to cast off for almost a month.

Journey into the unknown

She takes the plunge, but has to drop anchor in Falmouth on the third day to work on herself and the boat. The journey only continues on the seventh day. She battles her way around southern England and up the west coast of Ireland, often accompanied by heavy weather. With bright eyes under the thick brim of her woolly hat and a beaming smile, she sits at the tiller as sunshine lifts and warms her spirits.

Most of the time, however, things get tough. Then she ruthlessly reveals how unglamorous sailing is when her body is covered in bruises and her skin cracks in a salty environment. When she can't get out of several layers of tight clothing for days on end and fatigue becomes omnipresent. When it's all about functioning and moving forward. Only when she reaches the deserted island of Saint Kilda in the Outer Hebrides, which marks the halfway point of her journey, does she truly believe that her goal is achievable.

But Andy, her autopilot, fails on upwind courses. In order to make progress, she has to use the tiller. For hours, in the rain and chilly wind. Everything gets clammy. Plagued by severe pain, she has to force herself to eat and drink something. "I'm tired, wet, cold. Hungry and in pain," she writes on the 21st day of her journey, her destination almost within reach. "I always want to show myself as the tough, strong, courageous person. Sometimes I think that's what people want to see in me. But that would be a lie," she confesses. "Right now I feel defeated, destroyed and can't stop crying. But that's okay. Because no matter what and no matter how, I keep going." Mile after mile, wave after wave and breath after breath is the mantra she recites and writes that keeps her going.

Just one day before her planned arrival, exhaustion after days on the cross and at the tiller puts her into an unintentional deep sleep. Even with the alarm clock and finally the beeping echo sounder, there is no awakening until the "Fear" sits aground off Folkestone. British sea rescuers and the coastguard come to the rescue, but Turner doesn't want to give up so close to the finish line. "Unassisted" is part of her challenge.

The helpers remain on standby in the vicinity. "Fear" falls dry and lies on its side without sustaining any serious damage. At low tide, Turner crawls over green, slippery rocks with her anchor on her shoulder to secure the boat and free "Fear" at high tide. A day later, the cheers of her friends, followers and sponsors await her as she moors in Brighton.

Donations and other goals

With her record-breaking trip around the island, she wanted to set an example for the return of sailing to the Paralympic stage. Above all, however, she wanted to show people with disabilities that, despite all the obstacles, much more is possible in sailing than perhaps initially thought. What's more: "This project, Project Fear, has kept me going far beyond my diagnosis," says Turner, describing the positive impact of her project.

30,000 pounds for the project "Sailability" was the goal of the fundraising campaign that Turner launched on the occasion of her trip. She clearly exceeded this target: More than £50,000 was raised, money that was used to buy adapted sailing dinghies for sailors with disabilities.

Despite her health restrictions, Turner has also achieved remarkable success in regatta sailing. She won the silver medal at the 2023 RS Venture Connect World Championships in a double-crewed Para boat, followed by bronze in 2024. She also won the Swiss Cup and the Para Nordic Championships in 2024. In August 2025, just weeks after her circumnavigation of Great Britain, she finished on the podium in the Inclusive Category at the RS Venture Connect European Championship in Oslo.

The biggest dream bursts

Just a few weeks after returning from sailing around the UK, Jazz Turner announces her next big goal in August 2025: the 2026 WorldStar Challenge organised by the Royal Western Yacht Club. Starting in September 2026 in Plymouth, solo, non-stop and without external help once around the globe. Her success would make her the first female disabled sailor to achieve such a feat.

But while she is still looking for a suitable boat and sponsors, her health deteriorates dramatically. In December 2025, she wrote on Instagram: "This is not the update I ever wanted to write. My illness has progressed and my body can no longer cope. This marks the end of Project Fear and means I won't be attempting to sail around the world next year. The focus is now on palliative care and the priority is to make myself as comfortable as possible for the time I have left."

Highest honours

In January 2026, Jazz Turner received the prestigious "Duchess of Kent Trophy" from the British Cruising Association for her remarkable achievement - an award for exceptional performance in or with small boats, which has been awarded to illustrious prizewinners such as Kirsten Neuschäfer, Jimmy Cornell and Jeanne Socrates before her.

The next major honour followed in February 2026: she was named "Yachtsman of the Year 2025" by the Yachting Journalists' Association (YJA). The 27-year-old joins the ranks of legendary sailors such as Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who received the award a total of four times - the first time in 1969, after becoming the first person to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation; Alex Thomson, who was honoured in 2017 for his remarkable performance at the Vendée Globe, when he sailed the second fastest time ever despite a broken foil and autopilot problems; Tracy Edwards, who made history in 1988/89 as skipper of the first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round the World Race and was honoured for the second time in 2018, this time for the restoration of their yacht "Maiden" and its world tour to promote girls' educationand Pip Harewho was honoured in 2021 for her first Vendée Globe, where she not only sailed outstandingly, but also captivated her growing fan base with powerful, detailed accounts of adventure at sea.

"It's a real honour to be nominated, let alone win," Turner said at the awards ceremony. "To stand alongside the names on this trophy is surreal, but the award goes way beyond what I've done. It's about creating opportunities for all disabled sailors and showing that anything is possible with a little imagination and a lot of hard work."