A strong adventurous woman who has sailed 16,000 nautical miles over 18 months has made east Auckland her temporary port for rest and repairs.
Jacqueline Evers is from The Netherlands and set off from her homeland in July 2023 on what’s intended to be a three-year single-handed yachting journey around the world – a trip of a lifetime.
She was always going to sail to New Zealand and the reason she’s been berthed at Half Moon Bay Marina since last month is because she’s needing running repairs made to her yacht’s mast and equipment.
After arriving from Tonga, she docked at Marsden Cove in Northland and saw the friendly crew at Independent Riggers, who suggested for the work she was requiring to her yacht, Loveworkx, that she visit their yard near Half Moon Bay Marina.
The 55-year-old has become a welcome and popular visitor at the marina and Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, where she’s been helped by many people including Kevin Turner, the well-known window cleaner.
Her voyage has taken her to southern England, France, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and the Cape Verde Islands off northwest Africa, before steering a course across the Atlantic Ocean and on to Trinidad, where she also had repairs made to her boat, a Grinde, at 8.20m in length and 3.12m in width.
Made in Denmark in 1977, Loveworkx, which is also the name of Evers’ couples’ therapy practice in Holland, looks younger than its age and is designed for excellent buoyancy. The keel is 1.7m in depth.
After departing the calypso shores of Trinidad, it was on to the unique passage through the Panama Canal.
Once reaching the Pacific Ocean, Evers pointed the bow towards the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, and onto Tonga and then New Zealand, one of the first crossings between the Friendly Islands and Aotearoa this warmer months’ season, in September.
She admits “it was cold”, but it didn’t faze her. She’s from tough, weather-bitten stock who’ve grown up sailing in northern Europe’s mostly chilling waters and winds.
She’s enjoyed many a good time on route, and it’s disappointing to report that the first real trouble she’s experienced has been in Auckland waters.
The Times reported last week that she and her visiting son Sem had been attacked by a male in another yacht in Oneroa Bay, Waiheke Island, on Christmas Day: https://www.times.co.nz/news/crazy-guy-attacks-solo-woman-global-sailor/
On January 7, police said “a 63-year-old man is facing four charges of committing a dangerous activity involving ships, one charge of theft, and three charges of intentional damage following an incident where he allegedly rammed a number of boats anchored at Oneroa Bay, Waiheke Island, on Christmas Day”.
Despite the frightening episode, Evers has appreciated her stay in east Auckland and New Zealand.
Evers says her amazing global odyssey would not be possible without the blessing of her caring and understanding life partner Mark, and Sem.
She became a psychotherapist 20 years ago and her land-based work at Loveworkx in The Netherlands is all about finding practical solutions to problems couples are having in their relationships – encouraging better ways to communicate and be in stronger unions.
It’s a little contrary to her everyday work life that for someone who promotes togetherness will be away from her partner for three years.
But she says Mark’s attitude echoes the words of Sting’s song of the 1980s – if you love someone set them free.
“It’s an act of love,” Evers says, with a joyful tear explaining Mark’s philosophy. “He said for me to follow my dream.”
She started sailing as a child in Holland at age 10, continuing until she was 25, then had a few years away from it.
“In 2020, I decided to sail around the world. My first solo journey was to the south of England in 2022, and first crossing at sea was to Lowestoft in the UK in 2022.”
Her Auckland stopover, she says, has allowed her “time to reflect on the journey” to date.
“I’m really happy hoisting the sails and being on the open water. It’s still the joyful feeling I had as a child.”
She’s about halfway through her yachting journey around the planet, as her planned route takes her next to the Hauraki Gulf Islands, Bay of Islands, on to North Queensland in April and further westwards.
Evers intends to then sail over the top of Australia through the Torres Strait to Christmas Island and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, on to South Africa, and round the Cape of Good Hope.
The plan from there is to cross the Atlantic again to Brazil, the Caribbean Islands, and then homewards to The Netherlands via the Azores, the Portuguese territory in the mid-Atlantic, being mindful of timing sailing trips because of cyclone season.
A journey of the magnitude she’s undertaking warrants a book and Evers believes she will write one, and she’s already been published, with a book about infidelity, a subject she deals with in her office-based job.
“It’s a self-help book for couples – how you can overcome infidelity in five steps. It’s for both parties including the person who has committed the infidelity, as they often have feelings of guilt and don’t know how to communicate that.
“There are many books written by sailors about sailing, but I want to write a book that’s more about the challenge and what is learned.”
Evers has a website sailing.loveworkx.com where she’s writing reports about her single-handed sailing journey around the world, and her YouTube channel with videos www.youtube.com/@sailingloveworkx has 23,700 followers to date.
“It’s about building a community to migrate with me on my journey.”
