Hi, it's Elise Hugh and you're listening to TED Talks Daily. Tracy Edwards is most at home and most free at sea. She's a trailblazer who sails far from safe harbors as an ocean racing sailor and navigator. In her TED 2020 talk, she takes the lessons she learned from navigating boats and

applies them to life. It's a message for all of us, whether we're fans of the surf or the turf.

Being able to navigate is an extraordinary gift and there is nothing like it in the world. I get no more sense of satisfaction

greater than leaving a port and knowing that I can get my team and my boat safely from that

port to another port, maybe three, four, five, six thousand miles away.

Being at sea for me is its total freedom and it is the ultimate opportunity to be you

because you can't be anything else.

You are naked in front of your peers on a boat.

It is a small area.

Maiden is 58 feet long. There's 12

women in a 58 feet boat. I mean, you are literally up against each other. And so you have to be you.

The greatest moment for me when I'm sailing is the moment that the land disappears. It's an indescribable moment of adventure and no turning back

and just you and the boat and the elements.

And I wish everyone could experience this at least once in their lives.

The further you get away from land,

the more you kind of fit into yourself, it is you, how do we get to the next place, how do we stay alive, how do we

look after each other, and what do we do to get to the other side? So the question I get asked

the most when I go and do talks is how do you become an ocean racing sailor?

And that's a really good question.

And I've always wanted to say, I had a vision, which became a dream, which became an obsession.

But of course, life's not like that.

And one thing I'm really anxious for people to know about me

...