Jazz Turner sailed back into Brighton on Monday afternoon, June 30, after a voyage of 28 days, becoming the first disabled person to make the journey around the British Isles non-stop and unassisted. Turner sailed from Brighton on June 2 on her Albin Vega 27-foot yacht named Fear, which stands for “Face Everything and Rise.”

A 26-year-old, engineer from Seaford, Turner lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a debilitating genetic condition that affects connective tissue. She was diagnosed with the illness when she was 18, which causes fainting and seizures.  A full-time wheelchair user, doctors have told her that her condition is now terminal, due to complications.

In addition to completing her circumnavigation of the British Isles, Turner set out to raise £30,000 for the charity Newhaven and Sailability through her ‘Project Fear’. Instead, she has raised more than £51,000, so far. People can still donate at www.gofundme.com/f/project-fear.

Sussex Express reports that Jazz said it was ‘incredible’ to not have to use her wheelchair for four weeks while covering a ‘massive’ distance. She said: “I enjoyed most the freedom, especially when being offshore when it’s just you, the sea, the sky and the boat, just the simplicity of life. You eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired and sail the rest of the time.”

But the challenge was far from easy. Jazz encountered terrible weather conditions on the weekend of June 21 and 22, which brought her to tears for hours. She posted to Facebook on Sunday, June 22, to say she was ‘tired, wet, cold, hungry and in pain’. On Monday, June 23, she described her ‘sheer frustration’ at the exhausting circumstances but accepted her temporary loss of confidence as ‘just a part of life’ and expressed her desire to push forward.

Jazz described the voyage after the bad weather as ‘a rollercoaster’, saying that her boat ran aground off Folkestone Harbour at about 4am on Sunday, June 29. She said: “We had an unfortunate 24 hours prior to finishing where the boat got run aground and then I had to end up trying to attempt to re-float it, which was successful but it was definitely a bit more of an intense finish than I expected.”

Once she was safely on dry land again, Jazz celebrated with a pizza and by having an evening in the garden with her family

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.