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CANBERRA, Australia -- A 16-year-old California girl who was feared lost at sea while sailing solo around the world has been found alive and well, adrift in the southern Indian Ocean with rescue boats headed toward her damaged yacht, officials said. After a tense 20 hours of silence, a Qantas Airbus A330 search plane launched from Australia's west coast made radio contact with Abby Sunderland on Friday in the frigid southern seas where her boat was repeatedly knocked down by huge waves and she lost satellite phone contact.

AUSTRALIA will to pay for its part in the search and rescue of teenage solo sailor Abby Sunderland who encountered extremely rough weather in the Indian Ocean. Australian Maritime Safety Authority chief executive Mick Kinley said searchers saw and made radio contact with Abby just after 4pm (AEST) on Friday. "She sounds like she's in good health, as far as we can tell, and she's going to hang in there,'' Mr Kinley told said in Canberra. Australian authorities commissioned a Qantas plane to search for Abby, who is about 3700km off the coast of Western Australia. Mr Kinley did not...

BREAKING NEWS: Abbey Sunderland has been found alive on her boat in the Indian Ocean. The signal from her boat was spotted by a chartered Airbus A330 aircraft. She was able to communicate with the aircraft via VHF radio. The boat is de-masted and unmaneuverable, but she has at least 30 days of food on board. A fishing ship is approximately 27-hrs, away from her and is currently en route to her location. This info was from a live news conference that was just broadcast on FOXX-11 News in LA.

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.

A rescue effort has been launched in hope of finding Abby Sunderland, 16, who set off her emergency beacon locating devices from the southern Indian Ocean early this morning. Sunderland, who had been attempting to sail around the world alone, endured multiple knockdowns in 60-knot winds yesterday (Thursday local time) before conditions briefly abated. However, her parents lost satellite phone contact early this morning and an hour later were notified by the Coast Guard at French-controlled Reunion Islands that both of Sunderland's EPIRB satellite devices had been activated. One apparently is attached to a survival suit and meant to be...

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.—A 16-year-old Southern California girl attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone has rounded Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. Abby Sunderland is believed to be the youngest person to sail alone around Cape Horn, known for treacherous winds and waves. Sunderland says on her blog that she didn't get to see the cape because she was some 50 to 60 miles offshore as she crossed from the Pacific Ocean into the Atlantic. Sunderland embarked five months after older brother Zac completed a westerly solo circumnavigation at the age...

Here is video of an interview with 17 year-old Zac Sunderland who has become the youngest known person to sail solo around the world. He is interviewed here with his parents, and talks about his close encounter with pirates when he was in the area of Indonesia. The video shows a map of his journey. Sunderland lost 15-20 pounds during the year it took him to complete his trip. . . . . (Watch Video)

As the morning fog lifted this morning off Harbor Mouth at Marina del Rey, it revealed a sailboat piloted by a 17-year-old boy from Thousand Oaks who had just become the youngest to sail around the world alone.

MARINA DEL REY -- A teenager from Thousand Oaks is expected to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe alone when he arrives in Los Angeles Thursday morning. Zac Sunderland, who left Marina del Rey June 14, 2008 at age 16 and has been headed west ever since, is expected to arrive in his homeport at 10 a.m. Thursday to a hero's reception at Fisherman's Village. Zac turned 17 off Africa's Cape of Good Hope and is expected to be certified upon his arrival as the youngest person to circumnavigate the Earth alone by sailboat and the first person...

Like a lot of 17-year -olds, Zac Sunderland can get a bit tongue-tied at times. Only for Sunderland, it's not on account of hormones or nerves. "I've been out at sea for a long time," says Sunderland, who has nearly reached his goal of becoming the youngest sailor to single-handedly circumnavigate the earth in a sailboat. "You kinda forget how to talk. Sometimes I'll get into a port and it'll take a week before the words I'm wanting to say can come out of my mouth the right way. It's annoying." Sunderland, who has yet to get his driver's license,...

Position: 06/15/09 at 1525Z 17 01.419N 103 37.779W Still making slow steady progress up the Mexican coast with light winds forecasted for the next 24 hours. This morning I was woken up early by my radar alarm showing a squall 4 miles away. I haven't had a squall in a couple of days and I thought it would probably be low in intensity. The squall swooped down on Intrepid fast and the wind went from 10 knots to 40 in a few minutes. I furled up the genoa and put two reefs in the main. The winds built into the...

Zac Sunderland is attempting to be the youngest person in history to sail around the world alone. Though the goal is simple, achieving it is not. Sailing around the world is one of the oldest and most difficult adventures of all time. Man has tested himself against this task for over 500 hundred years. ...Zac is 17 years old, and he is growing up in Southern California. A year and a half ago, he had a dream to sail around the world. It would have been easy to dismiss such a far fetched fantasy, but Zac took his own money,...