Karen thorndike biography

Karen Thorndike, born in Snohomish, Washington in 1942, holds the Guinness record as the first American woman to sail solo around the world without assistance. Her voyage was 33,000 miles, which she started at age 53^[1] completed in 1998 in a 36-foot yacht named Amelia after Amelia Earhart.^[2][3] The trip took her two years and two weeks, but was not done continuously; for example, she had a three-month hospitalization for angina pectoris after her trip began.^[2]

Her interest in sailing began in the early 1980s.^[4] Thorndike took some sailing lessons, began racing and was soon delivering boats from Hawaii to Seattle.^[4] During one of those trips, her dream of circumnavigating began to take shape.^[4] However, when she confided in a crew member and friend about her plans, he told her, “That’s impossible.

You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into.”^[4] After that, Thorndi