Sailing supergran's solo bid is on hold (From Daily Echo)

Sailing supergran's solo bid is on hold

11:45am Thursday 11th March 2010 in

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SAILING “supergran” Jeanne Socrates has been forced to postpone her bid to sail solo around the world non-stop after being hit by engine problems.

As previously reported in the Daily Echo, Jeanne, in her 60s, set sail from Hamble in June before starting the epic 25,000-mile journey from Lanzarote in September.

But after more than 60 days at sea the former maths teacher was forced to pull into Cape Town in South Africa after water got into the engine of her 35ft yacht Nereida.

However, Jeanne, who is raising money for Marie Curie Cancer Care in memory of her late husband George, has vowed to re-start the voyage in October this year from Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

In the meantime, she will complete an 11,000-mile passage taking in southern Australia and New Zealand before making for Hawaii and then Alaska.

Jeanne said: “I expected my non-stop circumnavigation to take around seven months and to be quite a challenge but I never expected to have to deal with quite so many problems as I did on the way down the south Atlantic.

“With a new engine installed in Cape Town and other repairs also completed, I’m now ready to continue heading east from South Africa, to pass south of Cape Leeuwin, Australia, towards Tasmania.

“I’ll then head up west of New Zealand and on to Hawaii.

“If the timing looks good, I’ll continue to San Francisco to start the Singlehanded TransPac Race in mid-June.”