High winds rip teen's mainsail

Teenage round-the-world sailor Jessica Watson has suffered a torn mainsail in the Southern Ocean off Western Australia after being battered by strong winds and big swells.

The Queenslander's website says she fought 50-knot winds, 6m swells and cold, stinging rain about 250 nautical miles off Albany. Wind gusts caused two large tears in the mainsail of her yacht, Ella's Pink Lady, but she has a spare, the website says. Conditions have since eased to 25 knots.

Watson will sail below Tasmania before heading north to complete her circumnavigation at Sydney before her 17th birthday on May 18.