Without a doubt. I don't know what it's fishing for, but maybe it just fished it's way down. If that's the case, they aren't really out anything besides what she eats.
Posted on 06/14/2010 5:39:18 AM PDT by jimbo123
Trigger the EPIRB if your mother won't get you another beer.
So endangering your 16 year old daughter when even the American Sailing Association won’t endorse the voyage, and then contracting for a reality show is now the new American way and just spiffy?
Excellent points.
The whole concept of “Youngest person to (fill in dangerous stunt)” just leaves me cold. If she had succeeded, so what? Any lives saved, jobs created, enemies killed, Moslems converted?
There should be more opportunities for teenagers to do something truly useful
A good comparison is Mt Everest. There is a “climbing season” on Everest, when it’s relatively safer. It’s similar in high-latitude sailing, such as the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean.
You don’t do Everest or the Southern Ocean in winter. Not ever pros on fully-crewed raceboats with multi-million dollar sponsored budgets.
WHat Abby’s Dad did was akin to sending her up Everest in the dead of winter, because by spring she’d be too old to break the record for youngest ever.
What a shameless media whore.
Thanks for the expert information. That really does put the whole thing in a different perspective.
My husband is going to take a sailing class next month. One of our boys did the sailing Merit Badge at camp last year, and they’d like to be able to sail when we go on vacation in September. (Relevant to the thread topic), Tom is too young, at 13, to go alone on a rental sailboat, even if it’s a one-man craft.
If he learns to sail a dink as a Boy Scout, he’ll be able to sail anything. The principals involved in windpower are the same at any size. And the secret is, bigger boats are easier to sail. THings happen more slowly, and they are much more stable.
It took a lot of gas to travel that far in that large a vessel. I would think....
Do you think the SAS would endorse any 16yo to make such a voyage? If it's something you wanted to do, you'd have to do it without the blessings of official institutions.
The contact w.r.t TV potential according to the news story was after the fact. This should be testable. Unless and until any other information arises, I am tempted to believe the father's stated motivation that his daughter's experience might encourage others.
(Although you did not bring this up, I also find it absurd to compare this case with "baloon boy" which was nothing more than a publicity stunt. I can think of many safer and possibly more effective ways to garner publicity than to sail solo around the world.)
I do not know anything about this family except for the information provided by ONE story. I will reserve condemnation until I get the full story and not the one pandered by critics enjoying life from the comfort of their own lazyboy loungers.
Without a doubt. I don't know what it's fishing for, but maybe it just fished it's way down. If that's the case, they aren't really out anything besides what she eats.
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