April 3/2025: Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Through all of my career as a sailor and journalist, I have believed, wrongly it turns out, that Naomi James was the first woman to sail around the world singlehanded. I have a feeling I am not the only one.
It is true that Naomi was the first woman to sail solo around the world via Cape Horn. She departed Dartmouth in the UK on September 9, 1977, and returned there on June 8, 1978, having stopped only once, in the Falkland Islands. In doing so, she beat by two days the elapsed-time record set earlier by Sir Francis Chichester, who also stopped just once during his famous solo circumnavigation. But she also finished her circuit of the globe six weeks after another woman sailor, Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz, from Poland, completed her solo circumnavigation at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria on March 20, 1978.
There are different reasons why we remember Naomi, but not Krystyna. First, Krystyna sailed around the world via the Panama Canal (with several stops along the way), and the World Sailing Speed Record Council does not recognize solo circuits via Panama. Thus, in their annals, Naomi officially finished first and Krystyna never existed.
Another big reason was that Krystyna’s great voyage was essentially a Communist plot, organized by Poland’s then-Communist leadership via the Polish Sailing Association. Determined to send a Polish woman on a solo trip around the world, the association organized a formal competition, in which Krystyna, who was an experienced sailor, and also a marine engineer, ultimately prevailed. The association financed the construction of her yacht, a 32-foot sloop named Mazurek, outfitted it, and shipped it to the Canary Islands to save her the trouble of having to come and go from Poland’s Baltic seacoast.
That sailors in the Western “free world” were therefore willing to slight Krystyna’s achievement in favor of Naomi’s is hardly surprising, given the Cold War rivalry of the time. Ironically, though she was at first hailed as a great heroine, Krystyna’s association with the Communist regime at home also caused her star to quickly fade there as well. During the two years of her voyage, the Solidarity movement in the Gdansk shipyard where she had worked had started to take hold. Tainted now as a government favorite, the reformist union refused to let her return to her job, and she was shunned by friends and former co-workers.
Another irony is that Krystyna, in fact, was better qualified than Naomi. Having had no exposure to sailing at all prior to meeting the man who became her husband, Naomi had only six weeks experience before setting out for the Southern Ocean aboard the 53-foot yacht Express Crusader. Her voyage obviously was much more arduous and dangerous than Krystyna’s. Focusing more on safety, the Polish Sailing Association sent Krystyna on a “milk run” circumnavigation cruise that has since been duplicated in many particulars by many hundreds of recreational cruisers. (For a complete description of Krystyna’s voyage check this link here.)
Fortunately, remembrance of Krystyna has revived a bit in recent years, both in the West and in Poland. Yachting Monthly published a respectful obit when she died in 2021, and a laudatory biography was published in Poland in 2023.
And now even crusty old hacks like me are learning a thing or two about her.
Special thanks to an old friend, John Geoghegan, and to the History Archives group on Facebook for bringing Krystyna to my attention. It’s worth taking a look at the comments to the History Archives post! Many are pretty silly, but I found one, by an Aussie woman named Donna Taylor, that is quite special and personal and gives some insight into Krystyna’s experience.
To quote Donna: “My goodness. I met this lady in Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas Islands in 1976. We were sailing around the world, as was she. I used to row over and have tea with her as she was very lonely. She was meeting up with her husband in Sydney, and also visits had been organized for her to meet other Poles in each country she visited to remind them of ‘the old country.’ Amazing lady and I was so impressed to see a woman sailing on her own.”
This is a great summary of Krystyna’s experiences. I remember reading about her voyage at the time that she made it, though it received limited press and details were scarce. I guess there was never going to be a book published in English about her voyage, either. It was, as you say, just another competent tradewind circumnavigation, but that’s my special interest, not the heroic antics of non-stop Southern Ocean voyages, and I have eagerly read everything about her that I found.
Miles Smeeton put it well when he called his last sailing book ‘The Sea Was Our Village’. It is a wonderful community, and was even more so in previous years, when every anchorage was full of funky boats and astonishing characters. Cruising has not, alas, escaped the ‘Mcdonalisation’ of the world. It is sad that Krystyna was lonely in port. I would be surprised if she was shunned by other voyagers – perhaps it is just the fate of solo sailors.
I thought Kay Cottee was the first woman to sail solo around the word Sydney to Sydney in 1988?
Kay was the first woman to sail solo around the world without stopping anywhere. A very impressive achievement!
Hello.