Glad she's going to be rescued, but...

[Gob]

US teen sailor Abby Sunderland will give up her dream of sailing solo around the world, a family spokesman said.

The 16-year-old California girl is awaiting rescue in the Indian Ocean aboard her storm-damaged yacht.

A French fishing boat was expected to reach Abby about 1430 AEST on Saturday after a search plane launched from Australia's west coast made radio contact with her Friday morning, said spokesman Jeff Casher.

"This is the end of the dream. There's no boat to sail," he said.

Sunderland set off a distress beacon when her sailboat became damaged by 9m waves.

Her boat's mast was broken - ruining satellite phone reception - and was dragging with the sail in the ocean, said search coordinator Mick Kinley, acting chief of the Australia Maritime Safety Authority that chartered a commercial jet for the search.

But the keel was intact, the yacht was not taking on water and Sunderland was equipped for the conditions, he said.

Australia would send more aircraft to monitor the situation today.

It was quite likely Abby would be taken to La Reunion, but that had not been settled.

Rescuers had their "fingers crossed still", Kinley said.

Ocean conditions were now normal for this time of year, with a 4-5m swell and fairly strong winds.

Abby's location was described as "way down in the southern ocean", about 2000 nautical miles southwest of Perth.

It was a long way from merchant shipping routes and it was lucky the French vessel was in the vicinity, Kinley said.

A lifelong sailor, Sunderland had begun her journey trying to be the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop around the world - a record briefly held last year by her brother - and continued her trip after mechanical failures dashed that dream.

She told searchers on Friday that she was doing fine with a space heater and at least two weeks' worth of food, another family spokesman William Bennett said.

Casher said the boat had been knocked on its side several times.

From the family's home town of Thousand Oaks, Abby's father Laurence Sunderland thanked the Australian rescuers' quick response in sending out a search plane.

He rejected criticism that it was far too dangerous to allow a 16-year-old to sail around the world by herself.

"Sailing and life in general is dangerous. Teenagers drive cars. Does that mean teenagers shouldn't drive a car?" Sunderland said.

"I think people who hold that opinion have lost their zeal for life. They're living in a cotton-wool tunnel to make everything safe."

"The fact is whether a teenager, or a young adult or a middle-aged person, there have been many rescues that have taken place," he told NBC television's Today program.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/parents-def ... -y428.html

Should there be a place in the record books for "youngest attempt"?

How long before; "Three year old Aby Pushyparent, sailing solo round the world in a yatch opperated from her crib, has been lost in mountainous seas off Senegal. Her father said, "Well her brother's nearly two now, so we're training him to sail solo, in the hope of getting our picture on the news again.""

Oh, and if one more 16 year old parent sponsored "adventuror" tells me I can; "live my dream if you want it hard enough," I will personally shit in their breakfast bowl.

[The Hen]

Eeeew.

I am glad I have had a child that hasn't wanted to achieve such recognition.

And I certainly didn't want it on behalf of her.

[loCAtek]

'We told you so!' Should be tattooed on their foreheads!

[Miles]

I wonder if Dad is going to pay the freight for her rescue. Not to mention the fact that someone could suffer injury of death saving her. Granted that does not seem likely in this case but there are always risks in rescue.

[Joe Guy]

Seems I recall discussing the issue of letting a girl sail alone (at that other place) a while back. If I recall correctly, there were a few people who said that it was fine and her parents should allow her to do it. I was (and still am) of the opinion that she should not be allowed to do it and that the parents were idiots.

[Gob]

TEEN sailor Abby Sunderland has vowed to take on the high seas again after she was rescued from her stricken yacht in the middle of the Indian Ocean

Her 12-metre yacht, Wild Eyes, which was demasted in heavy seas on Thursday night, remains adrift.

"It's been a bit crazy these past few days, everything's happened pretty fast, but it's really lucky there was a boat that could come and get me where I was,'' she told the ABC from her rescue boat.

"I'm definitely going to sail around the world again, or at least give it another try.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/resc ... 5878946554

Once you've finished off paying the bills from the rescue out of your pocket money, you'll be attempting to be the oldest person to do it love.

[The Hen]

People who risk their lives and cost nations hundreds of thousands of dollars, should be required to have adequate insurance coverage to contribute (or pay for) the rescue effort when they inevitably get into trouble.

[loCAtek]

She deserves a spanking; com'on!

[Miles]

She deserves a spanking; com'on!

If she were older I would offer to do just that.

[Crackpot]

I might understand where you guys are coming from if she had run into problems due to her own negligence. As is it sounds as you are inventing an issue since you disagree with her goals.

Especially since taken literally your solution here would result in a ship being rescued from pirates to pay for their rescue which in the larger merely swaps who you'd be paying ransom to.

[loCAtek]

She was running into problems with her boatfrom the get go. It was supposed to be a non-stop journey, but there were multiple break-downs of euipment that had her stopping a few times. The delays sent her into the Indian ocean during rough weather.

She could/should have waited till next year for better conditions, but I think she was being bratty brash.

Australian taxpayers bore some of the expenses for Sunderland's rescue.[43][44][45] It has been reported the Qantas plane used to spot her costs AU$10,000 an hour to operate.[43]

[Gob]

Here's how they can pay back for the rescue..

LOS ANGELES: The father of the rescued ocean sailor Abby Sunderland has admitted his daughter was to feature in a reality television series pitched to American networks.

Laurence Sunderland told CNN's Larry King Live on Monday he had an agreement with a Los Angeles production company to film both 16-year-old Abby and her brother Zac, also a solo ocean sailor, for an ''inspirational'' reality show.

Mr Sunderland said the company, Magnetic Entertainment, wanted to film Abby's attempt to sail solo around the world.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/teenage-sai ... utostart=1

[The Hen]

Yeah, but it isn't going ahead now.

I guess it was a bit of a bummer for the network.

Still, the family had started a fund to try to raise the money to bring the boat back.

They had raised a couple of thousand dollars when they decided that perhaps that wasn't the most appropriate thing to request money for (under the circumstances).

[Guinevere]

I'm pretty sure that under international maritime treaties and conventions rescues for sailors at sea are carried out by all nations for all nations. The Ozzies rescue the Americans, the Americans rescue the Brits, the Brits rescue the French, and so on and so on. That's just how its done, and probably how it should be done. If not, what merchant ship would ever *want* to make a trip outside its own waters.

[The Hen]

True. That is the convention.

However, should you (as the rescuee) consider taking up a collection from the public after you had been rescued off another country's shores, would you use the money you are raising to try and tow your boat back to where you came from? Or would you use money raised to cover your rescue?

[loCAtek]

That is silly, but at least they're not like that 'boy in the balloon' family that still tried to sell their story.

[Big RR]

I don't know hen, what o the merchant marine operators usually do?

[loCAtek]

Distress signal for teens on high seas
Sentinel & Enterprise
Posted: 06/19/2010 06:32:17 AM EDT

The 16-year-old California girl rescued in the turbulent Indian Ocean after her 40-foot sailboat snapped its mast should set us thinking about parental responsibility as Father's Day approaches.

The parents of Abby Sunderland have been bitterly criticized for letting her attempt a solo round-the-world voyage. Of course, criticizing the way other people bring up their children is an ever-popular pastime but this adventure does seem extreme.

Frankly, I would have put my foot down if a child of mine had come to me and said, "Dad, can I borrow the yacht and go around the world? Can I, Dad? Can I, can I, pretty please?"

"No. Not until you have done your homework," I would have said.

"Oh come on, Dad. Don't be a drag."

"OK, ask your mother."

Their mother was always the adventurous one. Her stepfather told me that when she was growing up the parental practice of the house was to find out what Priscilla was doing and to tell her to stop it.

As for me, I soon got the reputation for being an overprotective father. This was because of my own background, growing up surrounded by wild marsupials. It made me a bit timid as a child, because one never knows what a marsupial might carry in its pouch -- it's always possible a really wild one might have a switchblade if it's a tough neighborhood.

When I became a father, I was living in a land free of wombats, wallabies, bandicoots, possums and opossums (which, as you know, are possums that have migrated from Ireland). Yet I carried the can't-be-too-careful-with-the-kids philosophy to my new home.

Of course, I thought I was just being sensible, but their mother said I was being too careful. Maybe, but I still think kids shouldn't play in traffic; it is unfair to the motorists who have to dodge them.

Informed now by recent events, I think it is troubling that the world's oceans have been turned into a vast youth recreational area.

Last year, Abby's brother, Zac, became the youngest person to sail around the world when he was 17. He held that record until May when a 16-year-old Australian girl, Jessica Watson, completed her solo voyage.

This is not a good trend. Before long, younger and younger mariners will venture out in pursuit of frivolous records and the great oceans will become just another day-care center. And think of how this will adversely affect adult sailors. With flotillas of young people in their wake, old salts won't be able to stand at the stern and smoke a pipe (no secondhand smoke around the kiddies, please). No loud seafaring oaths will be permitted either, because they might carry downwind to young ears that have never heard such profane language, except when listening to music and watching cable TV.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the greatest poets in the English language even if he couldn't spell the word "rhyme," contained a warning for the parents who would unleash their youngsters upon the ocean by themselves. Never mind the mountainous seas, the shrieking winds, the lack of pizza service and the whales, who set such a bad example for young people in the matter of acceptable obesity.

No, the ancient mariner's warning to juvenile mariners is the terror of solitude.

"O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!"

A goodly company! That is what kids need at their age. That is the time when they make friends, form their judgments and develop a personality, which they can't do while spending months at sea. It's all very well to be sailing alone, but sailing through life requires its own skills learned early in the company of others.

Of course, a goodly company is not guaranteed for our kids, as every parent knows. Sharks circulate kids on land, too; reefs and shoals (alcohol and drugs among them) await the unwary landlubbers, and the challenge for every parent is how much freedom to give their youngsters to navigate their own course.

Life is tough. Kids can't be coddled, but the trick is to tack between wrapping them in cotton balls and sending them out into gales in the Indian Ocean where the only ones they can call are French sailors (1-800-ZUTALORS) or the Aussie maritime authorities (1-800-CRIKEY).

Me, I was probably too protective, but at least the kids survived and were not mauled by possums. They will thank me for this on Father's Day.

Reg Henry is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. E-mail rhenry@post-gazette.com.