This young girl is a good seaman. She has sailed for about 12,000 miles single handed which is quite an accomplishment in itself. She has excellent equipment. We don’t know the details of why she was dismasted, so we can’t speak to it. A ship will pick her up, the Lord willing.
For all the whining landlubbers out there, one always renders aid to a person or ship in difficulty on the ocean. It is an unwritten law of the sea.
With respect to the rescue costs. Many search and rescue costs are overhead costs which are already paid for whether they are used or not. Using them just adds an incremental cost. For all of you that didn’t understand that- the SAR stations are set up and paid for, the salaries of the personnel are covered, the planes are sitting on the runways read to go. The crews have been trained. All that is required is the gas to make the plane go. As a plus maybe this can be chalked up to training for flight observers and crew. As for the ships coming to rescue her it is a break in their routine. They won’t have to depart too far from their great circle routes (maybe they have been vectored around to storms to prevent their cargoes from being damaged). They will enjoy picking her up and her boat. She will add spice to the evening meal for the officers and crew. It will be a real experience for her and the crew. I wish I could help.
The A330 was chartered and it wasn’t Aussie SAR. 4700 nautical miles roundtrip is some kind of fuel expense. There is no factual basis whatsoever to comment on seamanship,as the Pacific is just that. So, yeah, she can run some sails, but she can’t run 30 foot seas in the southern Indian ocean in winter. And... her parents knew she was headed into these conditions. This was a foolish venture that was not well thought out. But then, who wouldn’t want to get out of CA for this summer? Beats cleaning the dockage at daddy’s yacht basin. It’s like tennis parents-really quite annoying.