Tania Aebi

She completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 26-foot sailboat between the ages of 18 and 21, finishing it in 1987, making her the first American woman and the youngest person (at the time) to sail around the world.

In 1984, when Aebi was sixteen, just before finishing up with an alternative high-school a year early, her father bought a boat in the UK to sail it back across the Atlantic to New York.

Hearing of her father's round-the-world offer, many sailors accused Ernst Aebi of taking a cavalier attitude toward his daughter's safety, to which he responded: I didn't feel it was irresponsible.

[7]Aebi set out on her circumnavigation in her $40,000 sloop, Varuna, on May 28, 1985, her only other sailing experience being a six-month cruise of the Atlantic she had made with her father, her two sisters and her brother.

After Aebi's return from her 3 year long voyage, Cruising World magazine commented: "When anybody that young departs on an adventure that dangerous and does it successfully, it is an example to us all.

"[15]Tarzoon, the cat who traveled more than half the world around with Aebi, survived for more than 20 years and died peacefully in its sleep just before she was to undertake a new voyage with her two teenage sons in 2008.

[22] In September 2017 it was announced that Aebi's memoir Maiden Voyage will be adapted into a film, with the working title of Girl at Sea.

The adaptation was bought by Cohen Media Group in 2017 with the film script written by screenwriter Joel Silverman.