Mr Adams sir,
Thank you for putting yourself in a position where questions can be asked. You say that you wrote much of the material on the website. Did you also write the slide presentation where the "alone" claim was made ? Did TCT not see it before delivering the presentation ? Surely it would have been spotted and she would have been "pretty horrified", correcting the error immediately. I can't honestly believe any normal person stands in front of an audience and delivers a presentation without first knowing their material.
There are countless articles in the press where the word solo is repeated. You know as well as I do that most articles are largely cut and pasted from carefully crafted press releases. I doubt if many journos would bother to do their own research so I doubt that any errors you made on a web site resulted in countless misleading articles. You say that you know about football. If I were to describe a goal as a "solo effort", you would understand that the player created and scored the goal without the participation of a team mate. I know diddly squat about sailing but I know what a solo yachtsman is. Claiming you do not fully understand the term is rather "gilding the lily".
Did you also write the Wikipedia pages ?