I'm very happy to read that 16 year old sailor Abby Sunderland has been found drifting in the southern Indian ocean with the mast of her boat broken after battling waves the size of a three story building.It has taken satellite images, a chartered Airbus 330 out of Australia and god knows what else to locate her boat and now three ships are on the way to save her.
It's not as though she and her parents were unaware of the conditions.
But renowned Australian round-the-world sailor Ian Kiernan said Abby should not have been in the southern Indian Ocean during the current southern hemisphere winter."Abby would be going through a very difficult time with mountainous seas and essentially hurricane-force winds," Kiernan told Sky News television.Conditions can quickly become perilous for any sailor exposed to the elements in that part of the world
So can someone please tell me why she had to do this at the age of 16?Abby – whose father is a shipwright and has a yacht management company – set sail from Los Angeles County's Marina del Rey in her boat, Wild Eyes, on Jan. 23 in an attempt to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone without stopping. Her brother briefly held the record in 2009.
For the PR perhaps?
For her 15 minutes of fame?
Can you imagine the advertising slogan they could have had
Our sailboats are so safe that even a 16 year old can sail them around the world!