Our People in QLD
Brittany Tait - Noosa Sailor Breaks Icy Record
Noosa’s Brittany Tait, 17, has become the youngest person ever to visit remote Macquarie Island, a tiny sliver of land midway between Tasmania and the Antarctic continent.
When Brittany joined the Navy in January after graduating from Good Shepherd Lutheran College, she couldn’t have predicted that her first sea voyage would take her so far from home.
After basic training, Brittany was posted to the Aurora Australis (a ship chartered by the Navy) for her first ‘life at sea’ experience. The vessel was tasked to replenish Australian Antarctic Division’s research base on the island in the Southern Ocean.
Before setting sail Brittany, and her 37 shipmates were kitted out with Antarctic survival clothing to for the freezing winter conditions. They would soon experience temperatures as low as five degrees below zero, with sixty knot winds and a wind-chill factor of minus fifteen degrees.
Wild and unpredictable weather in the Southern Ocean hampered almost every effort to get Brittany ashore but, on Sunday the 24th July, the snow eased and the clouds parted to allow several hours of helicopter operations between the ship and the shore. Brittany finally set foot on the world heritage listed island, writing herself into the record books.
During her visit, Brittany explored beaches brimming with Gentoo penguins and elephant seals, and got a tour of the Antarctic Research Base.
“Being able to get so close to the animals was a once in a lifetime experience,” she said. “And actually breaking a record at the same time was very unexpected and exciting. I never expected anything like this when I signed up for the Navy,” she said.
Brittany has superseded Israel Cohen, an Australian Army barge operator who was at Macquarie Island in 1991. Cohen was 20 at the time – three years older than the Noosa local.