<p>Has anyone read her blog? [Abby’s</a> Blog](<a href=“http://soloround.blogspot.com/]Abby’s”>http://soloround.blogspot.com/) It is certainly interesting to read what she has been encountering all this time. I hope they find her soon.</p>
<p>I have been a sailor my whole life and I have mixed feelings about these solo trips around the world with adults as too often financial pressures force bad decisions. In this case, the pressure to be the youngest is driving these current attempts and, again, decisions are not being made for the right reasons. It’s impossible to seperate out that looming deadline from the decision making process.</p>
<p>I am also married to a helicopter pilot. I cannot help but think of the rescue personnel who risk their own lives when these vanity trips go wrong. I fully support the idea of requiring some sort of rescue insurance or having those rescued foot some of the bill in certain cases.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read, I think she’s okay and I hope that her rescue happens very soon. It sounds like perhaps her mast came down or some other technical problem as she is drifting but not sailing.</p>
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<p>“lost her future” is an unusually euphemistic way to say “died”.</p>
<p>I just read on **“Breaking News”<a href=“no%20other%20details%20yet”>/b</a>, the following:</p>
<p>“Australian search crews make contact with missing teen sailor Abby Sunderland, according to family spokesman.”</p>
<p>update:
[16</a> Year Old Sailor Abby Sunderland Missing - UPDATED | YachtPals.com](<a href=“http://yachtpals.com/abby-sunderland-rescue-9093]16”>http://yachtpals.com/abby-sunderland-rescue-9093)</p>
<p>Another update:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Searchers</a> Contact Teen Sailor Lost at Sea - ABC News](<a href=“http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=10884167]Searchers”>http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=10884167)</p>
<p>Thank God. I’m so glad that her life wasn’t sacrificed to her family’s idiocy. Hoping the rescue goes successfully once help arrives tomorrow.</p>
<p>This is such wonderful news…and I hope they bring her home instead of having her continue with this dangerous journey. She is way to young to be able to make this type of life or death decision to continue on. This brave risk taker needs a few more years of growing up before she makes her mark on the world. Many blessings to her for a safe return home.</p>
<p>Oh, thank god. And the parents say she will not be continuing on her journey. A breath of sanity. What a relief, and wonderful to hear good news.</p>
<p>Wow… just, wow! Am so happy for her family.</p>
<p>I would be more inclined to think it was her idea if her brother hadn’t done the same thing.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, healthy, smart 16-year-olds all around the world are dying because they don’t have food.</p>
<p>“Maybe she’ll find Amelia Earhart hanging out with Davey Jones.” </p>
<p>Not funny, Soccerguy. Earhart would certainly be dead by now, and Davy Jones isn’t real. Far more likely she’d run into Thurston Howell III.</p>
<p>wonderful to hear that she is okay…</p>
<p>I wondered about whether she’d even be “permitted” to continue with the journey after having had this experience. would rescuers be willing to be called upon again?</p>
<p>I’m glad to hear she’s safe. I also hope that all of the people who searched for her send her parents the bill.</p>
<p>Abby’s father, Lawrence, told NBC’s “Today” show Friday he was especially thankful for Australia’s quick response in sending out a search plane and that his son’s solo circumnavigation experience helped the family.</p>
<p>“We had experience with these tense moments,” he said. “They are not enjoyable moments, of course, and your mind does play tricks on you. … It’s just a waiting game.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Abby would be going through a very difficult time with mountainous seas and essentially hurricane-force winds,” Kiernan told Sky News television.</p>
<p>Conditions can quickly become perilous for any sailor exposed to the elements in that part of the world.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>imho it sounds like the family wanted to regain holding the record, despite the risks cited by the above expert.</p>
<p>I saw the interview with the family on Today. It appears to me that the father is eating up all the attention. I am very relieved that the girl is safe, but these people make me sick. I wish the media would ignore them.</p>
<p>*I’m glad to hear she’s safe. I also hope that all of the people who searched for her send her parents the bill. *</p>
<p>Exactly…then maybe these people would think twice.</p>
<p>I think there was some talk about charging some kind of fee or something to help pay for mountain climbing rescues.</p>
<p>But…thank God she’s safe. :)</p>
<p>It is baffling that her parents, being “expert” sailors, did not heed the very strong warnings about sailing the “Southern Ocean” (Indian) from real seamen such as Robin-Knox Johnston, who circumnavigated the globe in the 1960’s and wrote a compelling account of it in “A World of My Own” – assuming they were even aware of such writings.</p>
<p>When experiences of those who went before are ignored or scoffed at it displays such arrogance and stupidity that, were tragedy to strike, one would have a difficult time finding sympathy for the parents.</p>
<p>Am glad to hear the misguided young salt has been found – alive!</p>
<p>^haha, you said seamen</p>