Who is Helena from Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-short Stories and what is their importance?

Helena is the daughter of a wealthy and influential British merchant in The Blue Jar. One day the vessel they are on begins to sink, and Helena and her father become separated. She survives on a life raft with a young sailor. When she and the sailor make it back to England, her father is overjoyed, but concerned for her reputation, he pays the sailor never to see her again. Soon thereafter, Helena takes to the sees again, obsessed with finding a particular shad of blue. This search consumes her life, and she never settles in one place. She knows she will eventually die on the sea. In China, she finds a jar with the perfect shade of blue. She dies that night.