07/05/2024
SAILING CHAMP RETURNS HOME
Liz Wardley, a name well known with many sailing teams around the world, returned home last week to spend time with family, after a long time out of the country, which has seen her achieve so much including traversing the oceans of the world 4 times and breaking the World record of the Female World’s Toughest Row, in which she took on the challenge of rowing across the Atlantic in record time of 44 days, a hours and 47 minutes.
The 44-year-old, born and raised in Rabaul and Port Moresby, returned after 27 years, when she left at the age of 19 to take on the world. The youngest of 4 girls, her life was centered around the Marina, all 4 girls spent most of their time next to the sea. Growing up in Pom, the young Liz would grow fond of the people, the community and fuel her love for the open water.
Having developed a passion for the sea, Wardley never envisioned that she would one day travel the world by boat, not once or twice, but 4 TIMES!!! This was after she learnt the ropes sailing around the Fairfax Harbour of course, racing Hobies and other little boats with her sisters around the marina.
One thing led to another, and this led to her being scouted for the National Sailing Team.
Taking part in National Championships and other tournaments, Wardley was then selected to take part in the 1995 South Pacific Games held in Tahiti.
Recapping that time in her life, she stated that taking part in the South Pacific Games and flying the PNG flag was an honour for her and very humbling to have taken part in the Games and to have competed with and against her fellow country men and women.
She later scored herself an SP Sports Award that year.
With her Iron will to conquer the sea, she set of to take part in the annual Sydney to Hobart race in 1998, to which her team came third and the next year she led the youngest team in her division to win the race. The 1998 race being recorded as the most-deadliest due to extremely bad weather would test her metal and would teach her valuable lessons.
In order to keep herself busy, Wardley used her time to learn all she could about boats, devoting herself to fixing and repair work, knowledge which would come in handy later on. She stated that at that time, her hunger to sail although she
She competed in 4 editions of the Volvo Ocean Race. In 2001-2002 she was part of the all-female crew of Amer Sports Too. In 2014-2015 she was again part of an all-female crew onboard Team SCA. In 2017-2018 she was part of the Turn the Tide on Plastic crew. In 2023 she won as part of the VO65 crew of Wind Whisper Racing Team.
In 2009 she won the Fast-net Race onboard the Class40 Initiatives Saveurs-Novedia Group with skipper Tanguy de Lamotte.
After being out of the country for so long, she stated that it was quite refreshing to be back. She joked that when she returned, she could not recognize anything, but she looked to be happy back home. Wardley is not one to shy away from an adventure and for now she’s off to the U.S to take on the World’s Toughest Row Pacific.
This time she will be paired with Lena Kurbiel. They both will be rowing from Los Angeles to Hawaii. They will be looking to get there in record time.
When asked by the SP Sports breakfast on whether she would like to take up a mentoring role later on, she replied once she’s done adventuring she would consider it but for the moment she has not found her limit yet.
