Historic 11th solo voyage for anti-plastics sailor

One of Australia’s greatest yachtsmen, Jon Sanders, has returned home with a historic 11th solo circumnavigation adding to his already remarkable sailing record.

Veteran sailor, Jon Sanders returns to Fremantle after his 11th solo circumnavigation of the globe. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tony McDonough

One of Australia’s greatest yachtsmen, Jon Sanders, has returned home with a historic 11th solo circumnavigation on his already remarkable sailing record.

But his latest — and possibly last — solo journey has yielded another achievement that could change the health of the world’s oceans. At eleven o’clock each morning, wherever his 11m yacht Perie Banou was sailing, Sanders scooped up a sample of seawater and sealed it.

He sent back samples from ports all over the world to Curtin University in Perth, where the amount of microplastics will be tested in 214 days’ worth of test water.

“This is very important for everyone — the oceans are a critical part of our future,” a bone-tired but happy Sanders declared after arriving back in his home port of Fremantle to the welcoming sight of a flotilla of 50 yachts.

The keen conservationist, who sailed under the banner of #noplasticwaste, says the simple but reliable daily water sampling will form “the first reliable data base of microplastics in the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere”.

Most monitoring until now has been in major shipping lanes of the world, so Sanders’s more remote location sampling is likely to yield new scientific information.

It was the motivating environmental mission that saw Sanders embark in November 2019 on the eight-month voyage that was lengthened by three months because of an outbreak of COVID-19 in the Caribbean.

He celebrated two Christmases and his birthday at sea. “At 81, I am already the oldest person in the world to solo circumnavigate the world. I’m not sure this is a record I need to break. I would need a good reason to go again.”

Sanders has achieved virtually every “first” in solo deep-sea yachting records: first to circumnavigate Antarctica solo; first to sail single-handed twice continuously; and, later, three times continuously around the world.

He says he sailed through some of the fiercest storms he has ever encountered at sea, including the first leg of his journey from Perth to Mauritius, where he battled winds exceeding 120km/h. He used a heavy car tyre laid across the stern to slow the boat and ride out gale-force winds.

He sailed back into his home port of Fremantle mid-afternoon on Sunday, during the moments Premier Mark McGowan was announcing a five-day lockdown because of a COVID-19 emergency.

Sailing into a pandemic storm did not phase him. “It was a wonderful welcome and the best part of this voyage was coming home. Australia is the best country in the world and we are so lucky, we have managed COVID well.”

His voyage manager, Stephen Davis, said the eventful 11th round-the-globe journey exhausted Sanders as he fought a major storm in the Bass Strait just before reaching the home straight.

Yet the voyage may not be his last. “Jon is not comfortable on land, he’s most comfortable with a deck under his feet.” Sanders’s view? “Never say never.”