Posted on 06/10/2010 1:34:22 PM PDT by Jotmo
Rescuers searched Thursday for a 16-year-old Southern California girl feared missing while attempting a solo sail around the world.
Family spokesman Christian Pinkston said the search began for Abby Sunderland somewhere between Africa and Australia after emergency beacons were activated overnight and there was a loss of communication.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I know I'm not being over the top on this. I greive for this girl as I would any child lost. I have deep feelings and compassion for kids and their dreams.
But this was SO preventable it's not funny.
However, I'm very certain that these are not 16 year old girls doing this which is why no one stops them. They are adults free to choose their mode of adrenalin rush. That others suffer when they plan poorly or make mistakes and must be put at risk to rescue them fuels a debate that is still raging.
However, those situations are nothing like what this thread is about. This girl should have been given a strict, "No." by her parents who should have simply had the good sense to do all they could to protect this kid from such a foreseeable and preventable demise.
An adult who climbs Mt. Hood is free to choose the mode of their death. And they must go into it realizing that that may very well be the outcome. A 16 year old girl is NOT free to make such a choice or decision. It is incumbent upon the parents...as adults...to make the decision and say "no".
Nothing you can present as evidence or argument will change that or my opinion.
The couch potatoes might not be prepared but they’ll be alive.
You know people who go SCUBA diving alone? Not anyone rational or PADI certified I'll wager.
Hey! I don't do any of those wild and crazy things ... :-)
Just saying there are plenty of people who do. And I've seen the constant, on-going arguments from others who say that these kinds of people put the rescuers' lives in danger. But, even so, it still goes on and no one is prevented from doing them.
If our society really believed that these things were crazy, very simply -- they would be illegal.
A 16 year old girl is NOT free to make such a choice or decision. It is incumbent upon the parents...as adults...to make the decision and say "no".
What I'm saying is that she's free to make that decision in conjunction with her parents (and she has) -- and that doing that kind of thing is not crazy or insane or child abuse -- and is certainly not prohibited by law as such (namely not prohibited as "mentally unstable" or "child abuse"). Thus, it entirely within their choice to do so...
AND... you miss the point here... I'm not trying to get you to say or decide that you would do the same thing for your kid (or maybe not even do the same thing for yourself...). What I'm saying is that regardless of what you think about it -- it's entirely within their choice to do so ...
Aye. She picked a boat for speed instead of a deep-hull that could handle big waves. That boat would be mega-fun in the Bahamas...South Africa, not so much.
Moreover, her *first* trip through that area should have been with an experienced sailor on board with her and a buddy boat sailing near her.
Solo sailing is too dangerous for me. My personal choice is to sail with a buddy. Better still, with a companion boat on the deep ocean.
The giant ocean freighters will often lose a container overboard. Catch one of those semi-submerged and poof...no more hull on your little sailboat.
A Wetsnail 32, AKA a Won’tsail? Sheesh. Get into the 20th century at least. The open 40s like her boat are built for that ocean, and are fast enough to (generally) sail out of the way of the worst weather, with modern shore-based weather routing. A Wetsnail can’t sail out of its own way.
AMEN!!!!
Fin keels aren’t built for big waves. Wouldn’t be my choice for a circumnavigation...but would be my choice for day sailing in calm waters.
“SAIL GIRL”, I like that one.
You are not up with the times.
In gun terms, you are saying that the 1911 is the finest pistol ever designed, and has never been surpassed, and can’t be, and Glocks and Xds etc are just a passing fancy.
Or that the 1966 Corvette is the supreme sports car ever made. Sorry, but it’s not so.
Fin keels with well designed skegs and rudders for balance on all points of sail are superior in the open ocean. Long shallow draft keels are great for crab and coral crushers in thin water.
Fin keels are great (and fast)...but they will snap in big waves. A true ocean-going keel is deep (and slower), in contrast.
I’m sorry, but you just haven’t a clue on this. Are you familiar with the Ocean 60s that are sailed solo around the world (by grown men and professional sailors) at speeds above 20 knots, in the southern ocean? ANd have been fully developed over the past 30 years. Yes, they are racers and so they are built light AND strong.
Saying that “fin keels will snap in big waves” sounds as foolish to a modern sailor as someone saying, “That horseless carriage idea will never catch on. Too dangerous! We’ll be riding horses in 100 years.”
With their very deep canting keels they are not for cruising the Bahamas, clearly. But full respect must be given to boats that can sail themselves at 20 knots in the southern ocean while the skipper sleeps.
To catch up on the last few decades of developments in ocean sailing, I suggest a trip to youtube, search words Vendee Challenge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IdD9nxd8w&feature=related
That horseless carriage fad will never catch on! The wheels will pop! Horses forever!
Check out the great videos now available on youtube. Cameras are going places and showing things never seen by landlubbers before.
Look at this crewed ocean racer in a storm. And no, their fin keel did not snap off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuzy0k9mZQ&feature=related
Oh come on. There isn’t anything equivalent about not being able to “do anything remotely dangerous” and sailing around the world alone at age 16.
Nor does the risk involved — to her or, inevitably, whomever may have to try to rescue her — serve any purpose larger than “adventure,” at best, and self-agrandizement, at worst.
Of course I did.
But to what end? What is this really accomplishing except providing everyone else a vicarious thrill and cheap entertainment?
If she’s alone in a boat facing death on the high seas, do you really think she will say to herself, ah, it was all worth it, love you, Mom, love you, Dad?
Do you really think that if she makes it out, at 46 she’ll look back and think, truly, yeah, that was worth the potential risk?
I agree with you.
And it's not a question even of experience or preparation.
It's also bugs the crap out of me when people do "I did it" stuff that, if it all goes wrong, it's going to cost the public literally millions to try to rescue them, and more importantly some sergeant in the Coast Guard or something may even put his life on the line trying to rappel down from a helicopter to grab the person or something.
People. Think about it.
The saddest thing is that so many of these endeavors that kids get consumed by, the ones that take so much time and treasure and, really, their childhood, turn out to be not worth much in the end, even if they do end up making a buck on them or gaining a measure of fame.
Think of all the little girl gymnasts who spent their entire childhood in a gym (often away from home!), going to meets, make it to the Olympics, win a medal, get a few magazine covers and endorsement checks, go to DisneyWorld. Ten, fifteen years later, who even remembers most of them or cares?
Would they really think that was the most important thing in their life? Would they really get a kick out of being 70 years old and still being introduced at garden clubs as that “girl who sailed around the world”?
In the scheme of things, the sacrifices made and risks taken just don’t seem worth anything.
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