16-year-old solo sailor Abby Sunderland in destres

16-year-old solo sailor Abby Sunderland in destress 2,000 miles from Australia, Her manual EPIRB and PLB were activated. The second, automatic EPIRB has not gone off, leading the family to beleive the boat is still afloat and upright. Nearest boat is a fishing vessel 40 hours away.

More details on her bl blog og. http://ht.ly/1WTYW

She's remarkable.

My parents wouldn't let me drive 60 miles to Portland by myself when I was sixteen.

I hope she's okay.

I've got mixed feelings about such young sailors taking such trip by themselves. I think she is very brave and adventurous to undertake such a voyage. I wish her nothing but good and good luck.

That said I'm glad that the various major sailing organizations have eliminated the category of "youngest" on the various voyages they certify. I don't know how this tied into this particular case and will assume, until shown otherwise, that such prizes were entirely secondary to her own desire and internal motivation.

The celebration of "the youngest" person to circumnavigate is an invitation for the age to get pushed down, for kids who are not ready to get pushed to sail to soon, for a tragedy that could cost their life and well-being, and potentially put rescuers at risk.

The main problem I have with such things is the young brain simply hasn't finished developing. No matter how mature they are or act, they simply don't have the cognitive abilities that they would when they are grown. To push your kid into such dangerous things that they would be better prepared for later in life doesn't seem like good parenting to me. The ocean/mountain/whatever will still be there, and there are always records to be broken.

That said, I feel even more strongly about telling people what they can and can't do, and I don't think anybody should be told how to raise their kid short of blatant disregard for the kid's health.

Also, if parents are willing to let such young kids do this, they should be able to fully pay the bills for any rescue needed, and able to compensate families if a loved one is lost trying to rescue the kid.

MOB?
I hope not, but if she is then I wish her luck.
I really mean that.

It is so easy to be swept overboard if you are not careful.

That argument makes no sense to me. Are you trying to say that there is some specific act or decision a 16 yo is fundamentally incapable of? What specific act is it?

Experience is a more important point I think. And not many adults, not even those who have made around-the-world sailing trips, would be immune from problems that come from being in 20' seas in a 40' boat for several days in a row.

Bravery is the courage to do what is right under extreme circumstances. And that includes knowing when to call it quits. What an unfortunate situation. And for what? To break a time record? How tragic.

Her blog just released an update. Her rigging is down, but she's alive and well.

http://soloround.blogspot.com/2010/06/abby-is-fine.html

As far as whether she should be doing this trip, I don't think she's running a much greater risk than anyone else who pursues solo outdoor activities. The margin for error is smaller, but to some people the risk is well worth it.

One AP report says the boat lost its mast. Whatever did that probably doesn't make using a hand-held satellite phone on the deck very appealing, and she probably lost most other antennae with the mast.

That same AP report says that a boat about 30 hours away is encountering 40' seas(!). What kind and quality of weather forecasting is available to private interests that far out to sea?

I just heard she was rescued, alive and well.

I can't see my parents letting me sail the world at 16, but then again, I had some common sense and never wanted to.

The general caveat in forecasting services is that they are totally dependent on input data. Large stretches of the globe are virtually without any surface or air observations. Services in those regions are not as good as services in observation-rich areas. Satellite data improves this situation somewhat, but not entirely. I don't know the observation network in the area she's in, so I won't comment on that.


That being said, the quality of top-of-the-line weather and wave forecasts is really very good. I've been a weather forecaster for 4 years doing pin-point forecasting for the offshore industry, so this is something I know. The main trouble is the cost, not the quality of data.


Obstacle 1: You need computer and data communication equipment that will be reliable on a tiny sailboat. Those are expensive.

Obstacle 2: The results from #1 will have very limited bandwidth. You need a service provider that will feed you high-quality forecast data in a very compact form, suitable for download equipment such as a sat.phone modem for display on your on-board computer - and provides that service at a price you can afford.

All this exist, but quality equipment and services within those constraints will cost you. Dearly.


The computer-and-meteorology savvy can hack together their own forecasting service, extracting data from public available sources and assemble their own collection of products and data. All for free, except for the cost of data transfer. It's not hard if you know what you're looking for. But such "services" will be fragile - what if your techie friend at land has a flu the day you're in the middle of a storm? Or if the original data sources changes their format so the program you've ran for 6 months suddenly stops working? Surfing the web for weather maps on a iridium data modem on a small boat in high seas is NOT a viable plan B.


I know data from many American global models are available in the public domain, but I have never used them, so I can't vouch for their quality, availability or if they provide sufficient detail. Generally speaking, I have no reason to believe they won't do a good job for the purpose at hand, it's just that I haven't checked.


My favourite weather forecasting model is ECMWF weather + wave models, which are global high resolution, so location doesn't really matter. Trouble is, that model is being run by European contries for Medium range Weather Forecasting. For political and economic reasons, access to ECMWF data for short range (1-3 days) is somewhat complicated and/or expensive. Often, a limited area (regional) model is preffered if available, not really because you can provode more detail but because you can update it with fresh observations a lot quicker than the ECMWF model.


EDIT: Obviously, as James_Van_Artsdalen states below, the simplest solution is just to have someone at home to volunteer for daily studying the availabe info and communicate their recommendations.

A couple opinions:

Some sixteen year olds are plenty mature enough to sail around the world solo. Plenty of more experienced sailors than Abby have ended up capsized/demasted/dead in the southern ocean, and for that matter, in Long Island Sound, a relative joke compared to the southern seas.

Furthermore, in the circles I sail in people often say you haven't sailed much until you've dropped at least one rig! So cheers to Abby. That said, she should have rescue insurance to compensate the Australian gov't, the French fishing vessel, etc.

That boat is apparently very well equipped (note that *two* PLBs were activated and a *third* automatic unit did not go off!) and she was updating an Internet blog at sea.

Considering her frequent communications with home base I'd be tempted to do the weather analysis there. You could probably find a real meteorologist to volunteer to help too.

She had to stop in Cape town when both navigation units failed and she could no longer use parts from each to keep one running, so this was no longer a solo-non-stop record thing, but rather a finish-what-you-start thing.

Her college entrance applications are going to be just a bit more impressive than the other kid's applications that list burger flipping etc as their summer job!

glad she was found safe and sound. older hands have gotten in much deeper(forgive the pun) in less severe circumstances.

there seems to be a pattern here: only if a person needs rescue do people start in on how "they shouldn't have been out there alone" or "at that age they're not ready" etc. even when, as in this case, the person WAS prepared, kept their wits, and knew when it was time to call for help.

She also lost power when water goy into her engine. That wouldn't effect a handheld sat phone. Even if she had one she may have decided it was safer to stay inside instead of attempting a call on deck with such bad weather.

I'm curious to see what her emergecy supplies look like. This would have been the time you want to hire someone like Doug to review and advise on your kits.

This isn't the place, nor is there room enough to explain how the human brain develops. There are plenty of articles all over regarding the subject. Long story short, complex decision making capability isn't at full capacity until you're grown. Doesn't really matter whether it makes sense to you or not.

It makes me sea sick just thinking about being confined to a cabin in 40-foot seas. Urp...

Relevant here is not the indisputable fact that the brain develops until you're 20-something.

The relevant question is: Is this particular 16 year old mature enough, experienced enough and though enough to undertake such an expedition?

Well said.

Her brother completed an around-the-world solo a year or so ago, and her entire family has been doing this sort of thing her entire life. She spent 2+ years preparing for this trip.

She managed to repair the engine, got the water out of it, and had it running again. In those sea conditions the satellite phone can't have been very useful so it's likely she gets full credit for the repair, made in a 40' boat in 30'+ seas... She's also done other repairs (nav system etc) so I'm betting her 2+ years preparation were not wasted. It seems likely that it was loss of the mast that put an end to the journey and not some repairable situation.

The trip was going to end in August or September so it's likely waiting a day or two for rescue is not a problem in supplies.

PS. I was wrong about the satellite phone earlier: it's not a handheld but rather had the antenna on the mast.

Seems to me her timing was a bit off. This is fairly typical weather for that part of the world this time of year. That said, age may be a small factor here but not a showstopper. She seems to have been equipped to survive and she seems to have most if not all of the required skill-sets. Stuff happens at sea.

This Monday morning QB stuff is easy; circumnavigating a 40' sloop is not.

$.02

rant = on

You know, I hear a lot of people in a lot of places saying "oh, she's only 16, she shouldn't be doing this by herself".

HAH!

She's no younger than many of the men and women who explored the world in small groups on foot, or in little wooden boats that were at the mercy of the wind. She's no younger than many of the soldiers and sailors of the British Empire during it's hayday, and those of the United States in the 1800s. Never mind that Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Aztecs, and the numerous Chinese dynasties all had KINGS AND QUEENS that age who ruled the superpowers of their day ably and well in both war and peace.

The sociopolitical myth that there is some magical age when you become an adult is just that. I've seen 14 year olds who are more adult in my eyes than their parents, and 40 year olds that I wouldn't entrust with tools I used when I was 8.

She's a tough young woman, smart and competent. Not a girl, not a kid, but an adult. She might not have the experiences that some older people do, but she's got more wisdom and ability than the vast majority of those twice her age.

rant = off

OK, I just had to get that out of my system.

The situation she got into, needing to be rescued and 1200 miles from the nearest help, would say otherwise. I'll give you brave and adventurous. Wisdom ... based on the evidence ... not so much.

Age, in and of itself, isn't really an issue. Then again if you were on an airliner and two 16 year-old pilots came bopping in there might be questions asked. Of course all worries would evaporate if they said they had 'practiced for two years'.

Yes, there are mature 16 year-olds. And there are immature 40 somethings. But, on the whole, those who are forty are steadier and more reliable than those who are sixteen.

Also, while many military organizations had drum and fife boys as young as eight, and the navy had 'powder boys', typically ten to 16, who ran powder charges from the magazine to the guns, such young kids were not typically sent out alone or put in command. Even our founding fathers, setting the minimum age for a president, understood the concept. And the odds.

wisdom is knowing when it's time to pull the plug, and she clearly knew that. she was 'wise' enough to several means of signaling, 'wise' enough to have plenty of supplies on hand, wise enough to not go topside in a typhoon to try using the satphone, and clearly wise enough to know the trip was over.

Life's no fun if you constantly "play it safe," a that's not what ETS is about either. It's about being ready to survive if s**t happens while you're out having fun. At what point does survival earn one a "good prep" badge instead of a put down and a Rx for "don't do that?"

doesn't seem to me that her age was a factor here. her mast got blown off. what's her maturity, or the fact she's 16, or how far from land she was, got to do with that? if she'd been ten miles out she'd still have needed rescue.
even the fact she was going solo is irrelevant here. she could have had Captain Nemo with her, but no mast means no sailing, and that means calling for aide.
what would you all be blaming if she'd just been out for a day trip and something happened, necessitating rescue?

The story does show just how well EPIRBS and PLBs work.
Thanks to satellites (and thanks for the fact that she was not washed out of the boat) it is now a rescue story instead of an attempt to recover a body story.

The beacons have been a huge step forward for marine and aviation safety.

I deal with sixteen year olds in another capacity - recruiting and training them as election workers. There is a special program in California whereby students of that age,with a 2.5 GPA, parental permission, yada yada, can work long hours at slave wages as a poll worker just like any registered voter.

The results over the last several elections? Their work experience pretty much reflects that of the adults who work along side them. Most are capable to very competent, with a very few airheads and flakes thrown in to make things exciting.

I particularly note that in our just concluded June primary, I had two inspectors who have not yet quite graduated from high school. An inspector is the person in charge of the polling place, typically directing a crew of three. This is a job that many, many fully capable and mature adults will reject absolutely. They performed well above average, not surprising because they already had two elections under their belt. One had to go to the mat with his principal, getting an exemption from a graduation exercise.

Are these people"fully mature"? Perhaps and perhaps not. Think about your own path to maturity. If it was anything like mine, it was uneven and bumpy. I did very well in some areas while under performing in others. Now my gray hair shows that I am out of excuses so I must act in a mature manner. Old age is a b#*@h.

Well said.

Well stated Erik..

A better example might be the decision to end the record attempt when the "nav" (GPS?) units both failed. She initially swapped parts to get one working but then decided to stop in Cape Town to get them fixed. I'm sure there was plenty parental guidance over the satellite phone, but she abandoned the record attempt then, boat intact.

The one poor decision I see appears to be a case of "go fever", not exactly unknown in adults (hello Apollo 1). I suspect the reason she was crossing that area in a bad weather season was that if she waited until after the season she might not have broken the record (which, ironically, she had already abandoned by the time she got there). There's lots of blame all around if this is the case, but at least she didn't set sail before she & the boat were ready.


This will be a huge advantage in the future with job/college applications. She's taken a very large, very hard and very long problem and dealt with it. Compared to the job applications I used to see, which gave no hint of life skills beyond that of a burger flip, this is stellar. No hint of "raised on MTV & ESPN" here.

PS. And I like the fact that she's still on an "even keel" despite everything. An AP report quoting her after rescue: "The long and short of it is, one long wave, one short mast."

"Seems to me her timing was a bit off. This is fairly typical weather for that part of the world this time of year."

She's going around the world, above and below the equator where seasons are reversed. Exactly what time of year could she make the trip without getting involved in local weather problems???

How many of you have given your 16-yr-old a car, based on very little experience? What you've done is hoped that they would DEVELOP some experience, mostly at other people's expense.

If Abby can produce a book out of this, she may be able to pay for her college education without a loan. Reason enough to make the trip, IMO.

"Her father Laurence Sunderland, a boat builder who teaches sailing, said his daughter had thousands of miles of solo sailing experience before she set out and he had scrutinised her skills.

He said: "This was not a flippant decision. Abigail's been raised on the ocean all her life. She's lived over half her life on yachts. This is like second nature to Abigail."

He said the team of experts that worked on Wild Eyes and the circumnavigation project were "second to none."
She will try again

Sue

I'd much rather spend winter in the central Pacific sub-tropics/tropics. She departed SOCAL in January (winter) and arrived at her final destination (far southern Indian Ocean) in May-June (late fall going into winter). Then again she was delayed en-route and may have planned to cross that piece of water earlier than she did. Maybe she was supposed to have spent winter in the Pacific sub-tropics/tropics.

Her boat was purposely designed and built for sailing the Southern Ocean and that seems to have been the plan; still with the delays I'd have considered shifting north. She may have been going for speed and she can cross more lines of longitude further south, but that's a very unforgiving piece of water.

Agree.

That said, I think she did good, right up until that big wave rolled her and broke Wild Eye's mast. At that point age was irrelevant.

There is another possibility - they may have optimized the travel plan to accept poorer weather in the Southern Ocean in order to get better weather at Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. That might make sense in a non-stop circumnavigation if there is no realistic sailing schedule that avoids poor weather seasons everywhere.

Turns out that her dad is broke and was shopping her story as a reality show. It takes nothing from her skill or courage but mayber her family is not the "Adventure Cleavers" they've been made out to be.

Many, many people in America are broke and scrambling to survive.

At least he didn't send out an empty yacht and then scream that she was on board.

She had the determination, the ability and a custom-built yacht, so why not?

Sue

Have you ever wondered how Shackleton, Amundsen, etc, funded their expeditions?

The same way. And, by and large, they were broke most of the time. Exploration isn't cheap, and not everyone is content to leave it to the very rich, or the politically well-connected.

Oh that's right, no one has ever been to the Indian Ocean before. Abby Sunderland is an explorer who is charting unknown seas...

Oh that's... not right.

Jeez, no one said she or her family were frauds, only that there may be more to the story than "wonderful family encourages valiant teen to follow her dreams, and no financial pressure was ever involved".

Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic expedition would have been *third* to reach the South Pole. That seems not to have deterred him at all.

There are those who Do and those who Don't. I'm pleased that there are still some of the former.

Was Shackleton an adult at the time of his fundraising and exploring, or was he 16 years old during the modern media age? Details, details.

For me, it'd really come down to whether it was "Our daughter is going on a sailing trip around the world, so let's get a book/TV deal to fund it!" Or was it "We need some money, so let's get a book/TV deal and send our daughter on a sailing trip around the world!" Was the primary motivation adventure, or money?

Reading Abby's blog, I lean toward believing the motivation was adventure.