When Jasmine Harrison crossed the finish line in Antigua after 381 days at sea in the Mini Globe Race, the name of Thirsk printer Hillsprint was prominent on her sail and hull.
The 26-year-old sailor has already rowed solo across the Atlantic, has swum the length of Great Britain and now adds a top ten finish in the race for wooden boats, no larger than 5.80 metres long. She sailed Numbatou a 19ft vessel into Antigua on 10 March becoming the first solo British woman to circumnavigate the globe, doing it in the smallest yacht.
Harrison comes from Thirsk in North Yorkshire, home to Hillsprint, owned by Barrie Ward, and to Vision PVC, a windows company owned by brother Robin Ward. Both have been competitive swimmers since childhood with Barrie participating in triathlons.
The print business serves a local clientele with litho, digital and large format printing produced in-house. Likewise for the replacement windows company. “We met Jasmine at the Thirsk swimming pool,” says Robin. “We have followed what she has done previously and agreed to try to help.”
Her exploits in what are described as “fairly basic boats” have been followed in the North Yorkshire area and up to the Tees and Hartlepool Yacht Club where he learned the ropes of sailing. It is this coverage in the region that the sponsorship has tapped into. “It’s about raising our profile locally,” says Robin Ward, “There’s a lot of people around here that are watching what she is doing.”
Finishing as the first British woman to complete a solo circumnavigation was not the only record to fall to Harrison during the trip, says Ward. “She learned at one of the islands they stopped at that nobody had ever swum around the island, so that was another record to capture while she was en route.”
The 30-mile swim around St Helena took the adventurer 18.5 hours.
