Speakers Profile - Jesse Martin










Travels From:
Melbourne

Fee Range: E


Jesse Martin was destined for adventure. After learning to sail at the age of fourteen he travelled along Australia's tropical coast on a flimsy catamaran.

By sixteen he had kayaked through the remote islands off Papua New Guinea and crewed on a yacht sailing from Belize to Tahiti.

On 31 October 1999, Jesse martin, in his yacht Lionheart, completed the last great adventure of the twentieth century becoming the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world.

He was eighteen years old and didn't know the meaning of impossible.

After 50,000 kms and 328 days at seas he returned home to Port Phillip Bay and a waiting crowd of twenty thousand onlookers, having lived his dread. Lionheart is Jesse's story.

And what an inspirational story it is – of courage and determination and danger, and loneliness and joy. But, above all, it's a story full of wonder at our capacity as human beings to stretch way beyond our reach and attain the seemingly unattainable.