S/V Islander Circles the World: Short-handed, Multi-Generational Women Sail Around the World!

In March 2021, Barbara Euser and Kelly Gregory will commence their circumnavigation from Shelter Bay, Panama, in SV Islander, a Bristol 34. The circumnavigation is a longtime dream of both women and a way to deeply connect with the sea.

They plan on a west-about circumnavigation in one year– starting with a transit through the Panama Canal, across the great Pacific, around Australia through the Torres Strait to Indonesia, across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope to the windward Islands, through the Caribbean and back to Panama! While this is an ambitious voyage that has been accomplished by sailors before, not often – if ever – has it been achieved by a two-women multi-generational crew: Barbara will be seventy-one years old and Kelly will be thirty-seven years old.

Barbara brings significant off-shore sailing experience to the team: in 1993, she sailed Islander double-handed from the Chesapeake Bay to the Azores. In 1994, she completed the transatlantic crossing, landing in Spain. After sailing in the Bay of Biscay for three years, she took Islander through the rivers and canals of France to the Med. From there, she sailed back across the Atlantic from Portugal to Barbados, with a two women crew. Barbara spent the next decade sailing in and around San Francisco Bay. In 2004 and again in 2008, Barbara sailed the Singlehanded Transpac Race from San Francisco Bay to Kauai. She sailed back from Hawaii to San Francisco double-handed in 2004. Then in 2010, she and Kelly Gregory sailed non-stop from San Francisco to Acapulco. Continuing south, Barbara sailed double-handed to Panama and transited the Panama Canal to the Caribbean, where, now retired, she has continued sailing every season since.

Kelly brings over a decade of experience cruising the California Coast and racing in the San Francisco Bay. She lives aboard in the Bay and sails and races whenever the wind is blowing. Her favorite place to sleep is anchored out in Drakes Bay or tucked up into Tomales Bay. She recently acquired a Moore 24 and plans to ocean race and sail to Hawaii upon her return from the circumnavigation. An architect by profession, Kelly thinks of this time as a personal quest to communicate with the whales and understand her connection to the natural world.

Latitude 38 article on our journey