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<p>Nope. That would definitely be illegal.</p>
<p>Re: post 419,</p>
<p>I think it is up to the individual parents of course. </p>
<p>The issue here is not a teenager operating a sailboat by herself, however. The issue is more the grave risks taken for this particular journey and the way it was done and where/when, etc. </p>
<p>As an analogy, my kid is an alpine ski racer. Sure, there are risks. But if she asked to go in an area that was posted as “high avalanche warnings posted”, I would have not permitted her to do so as the risk then becomes reckless. To each his/her own, however.</p>
<p>By the way, there is a big difference in MY mind if a teenage sailor is in distress on Lake Champlain and one who is distress 2000 miles from land in a winter storm with 30 foot waves and very high winds.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4–I bow before a master! LOL LOL LOL</p>
<p>I should have typed: Do most of you ***poll ***your friends and acquaintences before you decide what legal activity is appropriate for your child?</p>
<p>For a minute, 07Dad, I thought you were wondering about letting your kid pole dance! :D</p>
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<p>Also, Ray L. Petreccia, Wm. Templin–how many more drownings in Lake Champlain does it take to establish that being on water is dangerous. On a lake, on the ocean–heck even in the bath tub.</p>
<p>A parent might feel less fearful by the thought that the child is at the nearby lake, but IMO that’s all it is–an unrealistic feeling of safety that isn’t there.</p>
<p>Here is my opinion…of COURSE there are dangers when boating on a lake!!! One can die!! Nobody said that was safe. When assessing risks, I feel that the chance of being rescued on a lake are greater than when one is ALONE 2000 miles from land with 30 foot waves and storm winds. Both involve risks, no question. But one involves a greater risk. </p>
<p>Likewise, my kid is a skier and a ski racer. We know others severely injured or who have died doing these same things!! But the odds of survival and of danger and rescue are worse if one opts to ski where avalanche danger signs are posted. Any reasonable person would say so. My husband skis in the back country…off piste…out of bounds. He is an expert skier. But he doesn’t go alone into those areas and he doesn’t ski if the avalanche danger is high. He still could be injured or die but he isn’t dumb enough to increase the risk by skiing when the danger is high. He also doesn’t ski in the woods when the snow cover is not deep enough, but skis in the woods otherwise. Likewise the danger of a solo sailor in the boat Abby had in a winter storm in the middle of the Indian Ocean is a risk that many would find to be greater than simply sailing the family boat on a lake. Both have danger, no question. Nobody is saying there is no danger or risk in these other endeavors.</p>
<p>Reasonable people take measures to minimize the risks but that doesn’t mean they don’t take any risks. My family wears ski helmets when they ski. They still can die or be injured but they minimize the risks by taking these precautions. When my husband skis in areas that can have an avalanche, he takes in special equipment just in case. Doesn’t mean he avoids all risks, but he tries to minimize them. Where we live, there can be very difficult weather to drive in. When my kids lived here, if there was a winter storm, we didn’t let them drive in it. They still could be killed driving on a sunny day but we avoided riskier conditions to try to minimize the risks.</p>
<p>“I think these feats are not dangerous enough. I think they should try something more risky!”</p>
<p>I know…ANYBODY can go around the world on a BOAT. Wake me up when a teenager circles the earth with just a snorkel.</p>
<p>So now its a higher risk of non-rescue, not death? </p>
<p>Abby lost satellite phone communication when her mast snapped. The boat never capsized and according to the builder of the boat it was not capable of being sunk. She had a deisel powered heater and 2 weeks worth of food. </p>
<p>The total time from loss of communications to being on board the rescue boat was significantly less than three full days. She was out of commnications for approximately 24hours before the Airbus made contact. Her transponders all worked.</p>
<p>Look at the map on the link. She was 2000 nautical miles from Perth and 1500 nautical miles from La Reunion, but the Ile de La Reunion was approximately 24 hours away (hundreds, but not 1000s, of miles away).</p>
<p>What was the risk of non-rescue that you are referring to?</p>
<p>[Teen</a> sailor Abby Sunderland found alive on yacht Wild Eyes in Indian Ocean | Mail Online](<a href=“Teen sailor Abby Sunderland found alive on yacht Wild Eyes in Indian Ocean | Daily Mail Online”>Teen sailor Abby Sunderland found alive on yacht Wild Eyes in Indian Ocean | Daily Mail Online)</p>
<p>Australian Susie Maroney swam a record 197 km (122 miles) from Mexico to Cuba, covering the longest distance ever swum without flippers in open sea. She completed the marathon swim in 38 hours and 33 minutes, arriving in Cuba on June 1, 1998. (Guiness World Records)</p>
<p>Schmaltz, yes, I think someone should snorkel around the world…definitely more impressive! :D</p>
<p>07Dad, I never said NON-RESCUE! You keep coming up with attributing thoughts to other posts that are not there. What I meant was that the difference between needing to be rescued when you are 30 miles from shore and where there are other boats on a lake are different than when you are 1500 to 2000 miles from land and alone with the nearest boat 24 hours away (which first required a plane to determine her location). Also, seas of 30 feet and very high winds add to the danger. Had Abby been knocked overboard or fallen ill, the time it would take to rescue her would be a factor in comparison to someone on a lake closer to land and civilization and other boats. If you see these as comparable situations, go right ahead. I don’t. Both involve risk. Both involve danger. Both involve rescue. One is more dangerous and riskier and a more difficult rescue (that also takes longer), than the other, in many people’s view.</p>
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<p>This is what you wrote. Seems to be about risk related to rescue. </p>
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<p>Where is there any indication she was feeling poorly or nearly fell overboard during any of this?</p>
<p>I never said Abby was ill or was knocked overboard. My point was that if these things happened (and they certainly were real possibilities…after all, even when her beacon went off, her own family feared she might have been knocked into the sea)…it then would have made the fact that rescue was over 24 hours away much more difficult than had that happened in a lake with other boats and land nearby. These were risks one has to weigh in such a venture.</p>
<p>That doesn’t even add in that 30 foot waves and the level of winds were a riskier situation than one might find, say, on Lake Champlain.</p>
<p>I don’t poll other parents as to what their kids do to determine what my kids can do. Why would I need to do it since my kids are fully equipped to tell me that “so and so’s mother let’s them”. Polling would go against my default position of “I don’t care what so and so’s parents are allowing.”</p>
<p>mimk6…agreed. Each person should weigh their decisions for themselves. It doesn’t matter what other parents let their kids do. I would not let my kids do what Abby Sunderland did. If they want to, then they can. </p>
<p>07Dad, I find that many of your posts tend to misrepresent the opposing viewpoints.</p>
<p>[Reporter</a> who sailed with Abby Sunderland says child protective services visited her before she departed | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)</p>
<p>[Reporter</a> who sailed with Abby Sunderland shares perspective - Outdoors, action and adventure](<a href=“http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2010/06/abby-sunderland-101.html]Reporter”>http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2010/06/abby-sunderland-101.html)</p>
<p>Interesting - Pete Thomas, a reporter who sailed with Abby, gives his own perspectives on the trip. He writes that Marianne Sunderland told him that a social worker interviewed Abby for two hours to ensure she wasn’t being coerced. </p>
<p>One of the comments following the Pete Thomas article makes another good point:</p>
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<p>07DAD, I’m completely not getting what attracts you to Abby Sunderland’s project, other than you enjoy being pompous and sarcastic. I want kids to take risks and stretch themselves, too, but there’s a Golden Mean for everything, and this was 15 degrees south and two months late of it.</p>
<p>The sailors I know are all pretty contemptuous of this, based on</p>
<p>– the boat being a little hot-rod for this kind of voyage
– the sailor having very little experience with her boat before she began
– the sailor being not nearly as experienced as most circumnavigators, despite being very experienced for her age
– the time of year and the route almost begging for trouble (really only the time of year, because that’s the route you would have to take for a non-stop circumnavigation, except she had just given up on the non-stop circumnavigation)
– taking risks other sailors deem unacceptable solely for bragging rights to being “the youngest”</p>
<p>Now, none of that is actually age-dependent. They would have exactly the same feeling about a 30-year-old who acted the same way, except they would not be likely to know about it. To them, this was a sailor in way over her head, who made a series of bad decisions and then said, “Rescue me!” Of course she should be rescued – at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, borne by others unless they can charge back some of it. But that doesn’t make any of the decisions that led up to her need to be rescued respectable, no matter what her age.</p>
<p>The difference her age makes is it gives us some other party to blame – her parents, who were facilitating and promoting the whole thing. Sixteen-year-olds are known for taking stupid risks, but generally their parents try to restrain them. This one’s parents cheered her on and sold tickets, and maybe pressured her to try it in the first place. To me, that’s all pretty loathsome.</p>
<p>And it has nothing to do with letting your kids fly unaccompanied, or ski on the expert slopes, or taking a canoe out on Lake Champlain. Hundreds, thousands of people do that for every one who has a problem, and the problems rarely require commandeering an Airbus to fly thousands of miles or diverting a ship and crew for five days in a storm in latitudes it would not generally touch. What do you think the problem ratio will be for comparatively inexperienced solo sailors in the 40s in June this year (or any year) in the Southern Ocean? Do you think it’s going to be less than 100%? Less than 25%? Doesn’t that affect how you think about this? If not, why not?</p>
<p>JHS, I very much agree with all you just posted. I’m interested in the question you posed at the end, as well.</p>
<p>(I know that 07Dad has said something the past to the effect that no teen circumnavigators have died…well, yet…as if that statistic means the risks are not there. Few have done it and nobody has done so in the way that Abby was attempting to do it and after all, she did not succeed…though thankfully she did survive)</p>
<p>JHS, I agree with virtually all of your comments in post 437 concerning Abby and her parents and that most experienced sailors would ridicule the stupidity of Abby’s parents actions for the reason’s you describe, a couple of which I noted in my earlier posts (the choice of boat and the apparent agenda) when i stated that I found the parents’ actions to be shockingly irresponsible and nuts. Hadn’t read enough at that point about the route and her C.V. as a sailor to comment on those items. However, I think you are off base in your posts 402 and 408 (ya know, “right but wrong”, as I think you phrased it). </p>
<p>Basing the obligation of maritime assistance and related questions of compensation on the rationality of the “rescuee”, as you seem to suggest, doesn’t work. The paradigm creates an internal conflict which itself is irrational and inconsistent with the fundamental values of the preservation of life which are the underpinnings of much of the maritime jurisprudence and laws in this area. Under your model, as I read you to be suggesting, if a mariner has acted “irrationally” in placing himself in harms way, then there is no legal obligation to assist and assistance occurs only if the rescuer concludes that there is there is adequate compensation to be had. If the mariner has acted rationally, then there is no compensation but an obligation to assist. Who decides this and when, while the need for assistance exists or after the fact? I can picture the deliberations: “Do I have an obligation to help because the rescuee acted rationally and therefore I will not get paid or do I conclude that I have no obligation to help because I think that the rescuee acted irrationally and doesn’t have the means to pay me only to learn later that the rescuee acted rationally and now I am liable for breaching my obligations?” The decision to help or not help becomes conflicted based on personal gain versus potential liability for inaction. Simply put, any rule that bases the obligation to provide assistance on anything but the nature of the peril and whether the potential rescuer can reasonably provide assistance effectively short circuits the system of assistance at sea. That’s why the long tradition and current maritime law is based on the nature of the peril, whether life, limb or property is at risk and the imminency thereof and whether the potential rescuer can reasonably assist (and in what manner) given the size of the vessels involved, distance, opportunities for other vessels in closer proximity, conditions of the sea and other factors which go into the jurisprudence of what is meant by the obligation to provide reasonable assistance. How the rescuee came to be at risk is irrelevant and properly so. </p>
<p>Your concept of a “real sailor” is also immaterial to this issue. There are lots of mariners I know, who by your definition are “real sailors” (including commercial maritime officers who my firm represented for many years) who would take issue with your definition. In any event, whether someone is a “real sailor” in your book or not has nothing to do with the application of the doctrines of assistance nor with their right to pursue endeavors at sea even if for only personal gratification. I guess the idle rich includes retirees I know, on relatively modest fixed incomes, who enjoy blue water sailing or middle class construction workers for whom being out on the ocean is their pleasure and instead of buying a small cabin in the mountains or taking expensive vacations, they buy a boat and do ocean cruises. Now, I’ll admit, my friend who has the 54 ft sloop and retired at age 55 is among the idle rich - but even he would be deserving of assistance at sea!</p>
<p>soozie - With regard to your post 425, letting your kid pole dance? How about your kid encouraging you to pole dance at a pool side contest while on vacation and then secretly videoing it on her cell phone. I’m still looking for the posting she and a friend put up on Youtube!</p>
<p>MichaelNKat…oy, the shame (the pole dance video)!!</p>
<p>I agree that I think the obligation should be to assist those in distress no matter how they got there (even if foolish recklessness). I just think that the person who has been saved, in good conscience, after such a highly risky venture, should at least offer to pay private citizens who spent their own money to rescue them. Even if it is not required to do so, it just seems like the right thing to do. Just my opinion. Yes, rescues should occur no matter the circumstances as long as people are willing to rescue those in distress (and most people are willing to do so).</p>