A hospice? I’d rather chase my dreams and sail solo around the British Isles
Alastair Hignell
Jazz Turner sailing in the Channel off the south coast near Brighton in her boat 'Fear' in which she will be sailing single handed around the British Isles and Ireland. Photograph by Tom Pilston/The Observer
Jazz Turner, 26, has just months to live. And she will face that challenge by boarding a boat named Fear, sailing into the English Channel and ‘turning right’
Jazz Turner is dying. She is 26. In December, she and her family took the decision to stop the invasive treatments that were prolonging her life. She was given six months to live.
Next month she will attempt to become the first disabled woman to sail solo and unassisted round the British Isles nonstop, and in the process raise at least £30,000 for Newhaven & Seaford Sailability.
Deluded? In denial? Over-ambitious? Perhaps. But also focused, fearless and single-minded. The journey, which she casually describes as “get out into the English Channel, turn right”, is about 2,000 nautical miles and the weather conditions, even in summer, would be challenging enough for a non-disabled sailor.
Turner’s version of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome means she can’t bear any weight on her legs and her joints are in danger of dislocation. She is prone to random allergies and liable to pass out at any time, while gastrointestinal failure means that her digestive system is unable to properly process the food and drink she consumes.
The rules of solo, unassisted sailing forbid outside help of any kind, including medical. Sailors must be completely responsible for their own safety and wellbeing while conducting any repairs to the boat themselves. No technical support and no extra supplies can be taken on board.
Turner is unfazed. The benefits, she believes, far outweigh the risks. Ever since her first experience of sailing, when a fainthearted friend passed a holiday voucher on to her, she has been smitten. “Sailing gives me the freedom to be me,” she says. “I don’t need anybody else when I am in a boat. As my disability has increased, it’s only on the water that I have felt real independence.”
And sailing has given Turner a family. A broken home and an abusive childhood saw her farmed out to various relatives and foster figures before Chris Turner, a sailing instructor at Newhaven, and his GP wife, Carolyn, gave the teenager a home and then formally adopted her.
They supported her through her A-levels at Bede’s school on the Sussex Downs and her degree in mechanical engineering at Sussex University. And they have backed her decision to opt for palliative care.
‘I don’t need anybody else when I am in a boat. As my disability has increased, it’s only on the water that I have felt real independence’
Jazz Turner
Turner’s father has thrown himself into Project Fear, as she has dubbed it, by taking an obsessive interest in making sure the boat is as sound, watertight and adapted to his daughter’s needs as it can be. While her mother has pronounced her “absolute faith” in the RNLI, Turner jokes.
An RNLI spokesperson said: “We wish Jazz a safe and successful voyage. As always, the RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crews around the UK and Ireland are ready to answer their pagers 24/7, 365 days a year to help anyone in difficulty at sea.”
Fear, the boat, is a 27ft Albin Vega purchased by Turner in September (ironically, her lengthy spells in hospital enabled her to save a large chunk of her university accommodation allowance to put towards it and kit it out with all the necessary technology).
A system of straps and clips should mean Turner will always be attached to the boat, all control lines will lead back to the cockpit and a watch on her wrist will alert her to the imminence of a loss of consciousness. The latest automatic identification system will allow her to monitor and be monitored by other ships.
Turner has sailed in winds of up to 40 knots so far, but is well aware that storms around the British Isles, particularly where the Irish Sea meets the Atlantic, can be huge. She trusts Chris’s attention to detail to keep the boat from breaking up, while relying on her own sailing ability to ride out anything the weather throws at her, including swells of up to 20 metres.
She has allowed herself between four and eight weeks to complete the trip and will pack just enough food for that calculation. Any longer and it will interfere with the other things she’s got planned.
“I’ve accepted the idea of dying and I know that it’s imminent. I could have continued going in and out of hospital with the sepsis that seemed to accompany my ongoing treatment,” she says of procedures that included receiving nutrition through a line near the heart, “or I could have stopped everything and just waited in a hospice to die. I’ve chosen instead to chase my dreams.”
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