Joanna Pajkowska
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Joanna "Asia" Pajkowska (born June 13, 1958, in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish sailor, with a rank of captain, a sea life guard, she sailed over 145,000 nautical miles, often in singlehanded or in two-handed races.
Achievements
Between 1995 and 2002, when living in England, she worked as a member of the sea rescue team on board the Salcombe Lifeboat ship, of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), being one of the very few women members of this British sea rescue organization. She took part in several sea rescue operations.
In years 1995, 1997, 1999 she took part in the renowned Fastnet Race regattas, from South England to Ireland.
Twice she sailed in the two-handed transatlantic races: in 1986 in the Two-Star[disambiguation needed] regatta from Plymouth in England to Newport in the US on the catamaran Alamatur III and in 2001 in the race from Le Havre to Brasil, on the Olympic Challenger.
In 2000, on the 40-foot yacht Ntombifuti she finished 4th in the class (in the field of 24 competitors) in the singlehanded transatlantic race OSTAR, from Plymouth (UK) to Newport (US). For her standing in the race she received the Honour Trophy of the Polish Yachting Association (Polski Związek Żeglarski) in the category of the Race of the Year 2000.
She took part in many multi-member team transatlantic races, including a female only crew on the 60-foot S/Y Alphagraphics in 2001 in the EDS Atlantic Challenge regatta, on course Saint-Malo – Hamburg – Portsmouth – Baltimore – Boston – Saint-Malo. In December 2002 and January 2003, on board S/Y Zjawa IV, she sailed three times around Cape Horn and reached the South Shetland archipelago at Antarctic. In the period between October 2006 and February 2007, in the two-member female only race around the world, on board the 28-foot boat Mantra Asia, she sailed halfway around the world (from Darwin in Australia, across the Indian Ocean to Cape Town in South Africa and further across the Atlantic to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, and she won her stage of the race. Since 2005 she sails around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea with a base in England. She also does yacht deliveries, sails as a mate on board STS Pogoria, as well as a charter skipper.
Single-handed sail around the world
On 8 January 2009 Joanna Pajkowska completed in Panama her solo trip around the world with one stop.
Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz (born 15 July 1936 in Poland) was the first woman to sail single-handed (i.e. solo) around the world. She sailed from the Canary Islands on 28 February 1976, and returned there on 21 April 1978, completing a circumnavigation of 31,166 nautical miles (57,719 km) in 401 days.
The first Polish sailor sailed the world around from West to East without any stop was Henryk Jaskuła on S/Y Dar Przemyśla and stands at 344 days . Only one Polish sailor, Tomasz Lewandowski, sailed around the world from East to West, without stopping at any ports, on the yacht named Luka, in 392 days in 2007-2008.
Joanna Pajkowska did her trip on board the sailboat Mantra ASIA (model Mantra 28), with the LOA of 8.5 m, beam of 2.7 m and draft of 1.65 m. The boat has the displacement of 3.5 tons and 60 sqm of the sail surface. She was designed by Andrzej Armiński and built in his dockyard in Szczecin, Poland. Andrzej Armiński was also the main organizer and the sponsor of the event. The bearing was westward from Panama City, Panama, across Pacific Ocean, through Torres Strait, across Indian Ocean, around Cape of Good Hope and across Atlantic Ocean to Colon in Panama,and the estimated distance is 25,000 nautical miles.
For her trip Cpt. Pajkowska was awarded by the Polish Yachting Association (Polski Związek Żeglarski) with the most prestigious in the Polish yachting community distinction, the PYA Golden Badge. She was also awarded with the CONRADY International Award by the Baltic Shores Brotherhood (Bałtyckie Bractwo Wybrzeża).