Woman Sails Alone Around the World

TOKYO — A Japanese woman arrived home Wednesday after completing a solo nonstop sailing voyage around the world, covering 33,500 miles in 277 days, a Maritime Safety Agency official said.

“I’m so happy. I feel like I might have a heart attack,” Kyoko Imakiire, 27, said after arriving aboard the 35-foot boat Kairen at Kagoshima Bay at the tip of the southern island of Kyushu.

In 1988, Imakiire became the first woman to sail solo from Japan across the Pacific Ocean and back.