She landed in Dominica on Jan. 24, 1953, formally ending her eight-month-long journey and cementing her standing as a crusing pioneer. “She Conquered the Atlantic,” one newspaper headline proclaimed.
Her e book “My Ship Is So Small,” printed in 1956, obtained constructive opinions. (Her first e book, “Final Voyage,” which chronicled her ill-fated 1949 crusing journey, had additionally been properly obtained.) However after just a few years, Davison’s story was principally forgotten. When she appeared in 1962 on the sport present “To Inform the Fact,” wherein three folks declare to be the identical notable particular person, not one of the celeb judges had heard of her; just one appropriately guessed who she was.
Davison was residing in Florida by then and had married Bert Billheimer, a former Miami Herald photographer. The 2 shared an curiosity in boats, and a 1960 journey they took by the Everglades, throughout which they traveled by motorboat and took pictures of wildlife, was the topic of a New York Occasions article.
Davison had bought the Felicity Ann and, by all accounts, by no means went on one other solo crusing expedition. “I knew what single-handed crusing was like now,” she wrote in “My Ship Is So Small.” “The expertise was full.”
In 1990, when Cruising World journal tracked Davison down after inducting her into its Corridor of Fame, she and Billheimer not owned any boats and had been residing in relative obscurity on a ranch in Lorida, Fla., the place they bred unique cats.
Davison died on Could 12, 1992. She was 78. A short dying discover appeared in The Tampa Tribune, however it didn’t point out her trans-Atlantic crossing, and there have been no obituaries in mainstream newspapers in the US. Her books had been out of print, and he or she appeared destined to be remembered as a footnote, if that.
Not too long ago, although, Davison’s sailboat was rediscovered after passing by a number of personal house owners, and it was restored by the Northwest College of Wood Boatbuilding and the Group Boat Undertaking in Washington State, which now use it to advertise ladies’s empowerment by crusing classes and different actions. Moreover, a home in England the place she lived together with her first husband was given a plaque and named a nationwide landmark for traditionally vital locations in 2017.
Davison will not be a standard function mannequin: She wasn’t a talented or devoted sailor, and the feat she achieved was arguably reckless. However, as Alfred Ames wrote in a evaluate of her e book in The Chicago Tribune in 1956, “Braveness corresponding to hers, used to no matter ends, deserves respectful consideration.”