Profiles in Parenting
By John Cole June 10th, 2010
No one could have predicted:
A 16-year-old girl trying to sail solo around the world was missing in the Indian Ocean some 2,000 miles east of Madagascar, according to her family, who said Thursday that she had encountered treacherous seas.The girl, Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks, Calif., departed alone Jan. 23 in her sailboat Wild Eyes. On Thursday, she lost satellite phone contact with her family and set off emergency beacons, triggering a rescue effort by United States, Australian and French authorities. Ms. Sunderland was trying to break the record for the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe, a title held briefly by her older brother Zac, who completed his sail last year at 17.
If these assholes have any other kids, TAKE THEM AWAY NOW.
Posted in Assholes
Sorry, but that’s an asshole comment. 16 is not too young to sail. She’s probaly been sailing for 8 yrs or so. Who the hell are you to judge her maturity and experience?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Oh God. This reminds me of that 7 year old little girl who was allowed to fly a plane. “Daddy” said it was “one of the experiences she chose for herself.” Guess what happened.
You have to have a license to drive a car. You have to have a license to have a dog. But any fucked up asshole can have a kid. It is a “fundamental right.”
June 10th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I realize I’m going to be in the minority on this but I have to admit, I am not horrified that her parents let her do this. She was well-trained, she knew what she was doing, and it sounds like she ran into the kind of problem that could happen to even the most experienced sailor. Not only that, but they sent her out with a shitload of safety equipment which is the reason we even know something went wrong.
Sorry, I’m not seeing the neglect here. High school boys die or are permanently paralyzed every year playing football. Are you calling for high school football to be banned because it’s just too dangerous?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I’m impressed that a 16-YO sailing alone on the open ocean made it for 4 1/2 months, frankly.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I wouldn’t let my 16-year-old drive cross-country, let alone sail around the globe.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
This is like the Balloon Boy story if the Balloon Boy story wasn’t a hoax. Horrible.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I agree with you, John. The same goes for the 13 y.o. who climbed Mt. Everest. Things turned out well for the climber but could have ended tragically. Juveniles are just not equipped to make full, rational evaluations of the risks involved.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I’m sorry – but at 16, I wouldn’t let my kids drive to the grocery store alone, let alone sail around the world SOLO. I’m a pretty permissive parent who believes in fostering independence, but I’m not insane.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
Sorry John, but if her brother successfully circumnavigated at a year older, these were clearly seasoned pros even at the young age. I agree that shit is dangerous, but so is handing your 16 year old daughter the keys to your car. Or taking your 10 year old son hiking in the woods. Or bungee jumping at any age.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
@eemom:
There’s a huge difference in maturity and experience between a 7-year-old and a 16-year-old. If your 16-year-old kid acts like a 7-year-old, you have failed as a parent.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
holy shit. I thought this one was a no brainer.
So…..how ‘bout that Helen Thomas, eh?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
@Punchy:
No, I don’t think it is. We don’t let 16 year olds drink, we don’t let them vote and we don’t send them off to fight in wars. 16 year olds aren’t ready for this kind of pressure. One mistake, and you’re dead, alone on the sea. Anybody who would let their 16 year old daughter—or their 17 year old son—go off to do something like that shouldn’t be raising—if you can even call it that; “raising” implies some thought for their welfare—children.
Anybody could foresee that something bad could happen; it’s a parent’s job to say, “No, you’re too young to do this on your own. Sorry. I’d rather have you pissed off at me than dead.” That’s what parents do, not send their children off to sail around the world alone for the sake of some dumb record.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I agree with John. There’s a point at which this game of “youngest ever to do something really dangerous” crosses the line and I happen to think sailing solo around the world is over the line. Climbing Mt. Everest, also over the line. I have the same reaction even when they make it home safely.
There’s a lot of records of the form “youngest ever to do such-and-such” that the Guinness people refuse to recognize because they don’t want to encourage overly dangerous stuff. I have no idea if this record is one of them, but they’re thinking the right way as far as I’m concerned.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
There must be some kind of antisemitic spin to this story.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Actually, that girl’s mom is 9 mos pregnant and is about to have another baby. That’s why she can’t get too distressed over the missing 16 y.o.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Are there any biological studies about the maturity of a 16-year-old? Someone can look mature and trained, but aren’t there biological limits to what a kid that age can do?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
@jacy:
Wait. You don’t let your 16-year-old with a driver’s license drive to the grocery store alone? WTF? I’m sorry, but that’s insane. At 16, I was driving myself back and forth to both work and school and, frankly, I was not the world’s most mature kid.
I’m pretty horrified by how far we’ve regressed as a society. I was walking to school by myself when I was 6 years old. These days, someone would call CPS on my parents for that.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
@Mnemosyne:
before I tell you to go fuck yourself, I will politely note that I have a 15 and a half year old of whose intelligence, maturity and wisdom I am extraordinarily and justifiably proud; that she could be an accomplished sailor if she wanted to; that even if she was a fucking Olympic champion sailor, I still wouldn’t let her sail alone around the world; that it has nothing to with the difference between 7 and 16, and everything to do with being a responsible parent.
That said, go fuck yourself.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
@Punchy:
too young to sail? no. to sail around the world by themselves? definitely.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
@eemom: you need to get this tourette’s looked at.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
It’s all fun and games until someone capsizes their boat in a winter storm dozens of hours from help. If she’s injured or killed, I hope the parents go up for child endangerment. At the very least, they should have to cough up the costs for the S&R.
Thousand Oaks can be a fairly well to do area, but the yard of the Family home looked very middle class. So, there IS some commonality with balloon boy (being the youngest to sail the globe means fame – and upward mobility?).
June 10th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
@Punchy: I don’t know if you are joking or not, but just in case. I’m an adult who can judge and sending your sixteen year old out alone to sail around the world qualifies you as an asshole and unfit parent. Take the rest of the kids away before they manage to kill them too.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
@LD50:
agreed. I’ll do anything to get out of this particular species of idiocy.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
@eemom: When the seven year old pilot died, Richard Cohen (of WaPo op-ed fame) wrote that it was a disgrace and tragedy, and also – to my surprise – that she’d never experienced physical love (or an orgasm, I don’t recall exactly). I thought it was a peculiar, yet strangely true, observation.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Mnemosyne: Move over and make room in that minority. My understanding is that she had been sailing for years. A year and a half later she wouldn’t have needed permission. And nothing would have guaranteed her safety.
One of the things I have never understood is how Americans make this abrupt transition between childhood and adulthood at the magical age of 18. Before, you’re a child and must be protected from everything. Afterwards, you’re an adult, here’s your rifle.
Insane.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
@LD50:
ok then, fuck you too.
Over and out.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
@eemom:
So you don’t let your kids play sports, right? As I pointed out above, your kid is much more likely to die or be permanently paralyzed playing football than sailing.
Is it irresponsible for parents to let their kids play football given what we now know about the permanent brain damage football players suffer? Aren’t you a bad parent if you allow your child to play a game that will inevitably lead to brain damage?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Man, as a parent myself, I am really torn on this.
I think it was probably a bad idea, but 16 is an interesting age. The US and its sycophants are the only ones obsessed with 18 as the Magic Year When You Can Do All (except drink). It is ultimately an arbitrary age that is useful for legal purposes, but I don’t think these people should have their children taken away because they let their 16 year old, an experienced sailor, try for the record. For 99% of human history, people didn’t wait until they were 18 to do courageous things. But since we live in a soft and overly protective culture, we are more easily alarmed by this kind of thing.
It’s still not something I would ever do, but different families have different values, and I am having a hard time getting strident about this one.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Well, I can’t get too outraged about this. 16 is one of those ages where you really can’t judge. I’ve met some unbelievably responsible and with-it 16 year olds that I’d be more comfortable with doing something like this than some 30 year-olds I know.
That said, what sets off my alarm is that she’s breaking her brothers record. Now, the number of people equipped to sail around the world is astonishingly low so 2 in the same family isn’t odd, but then 2 in the same family is also indicative of over-aggressive parents.
Gonna need more info on this one.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
@Mumphrey:
The reason we don’t allow 16 year olds to do these things by law is because we set up laws that deal with typical 16 year olds. You’re comparing decisions made by others for ALL 16 year olds to a decision made with regard to one particular 16 year old. These are not particularly comparable. We pass blanket laws because it’s not administratively feasible to evaluate the maturity of EVERY 16 year old. So we set an arbitrary line. But this is a case in which the people in charge made a decision based on the maturity and ability of one particular 16 year old.
In other words, you’re arguing that there is no 16 year old, anywhere in the world, equipped to drink responsibly, vote responsibly, or fight in a war. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that there is not one 16 year old in this country who could not make an informed decision at a voting booth? Really? There’s nothing that magically happens at age 18 that makes someone capable of voting. I know 50 year olds I wouldn’t trust in a voting booth. I know 15 year olds who can understand issues and make informed decisions. Your analogy is not apt.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
@Steve:
Not so sure there; surely, there were adults close at hand and Everest isn’t THAT dangerous (with proper gear and all reasonable caution).
Sailing in the storms of winter of the Indian Ocean clearly fails the reasonable caution requirement.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
As a rule, letting a 16-year-old sail around the world alone is verifiably insane. But, lo, there are exceptions to every rule, and everything that’s been written about this girl has suggested she’s one of them.
One aspect of the story not in the quote is that the people involved were criticized for letting her take a trip that would put her in the Indian Ocean during their winter, when it’s terribly stormy; that’s presumed to be the reason she’s in distress (or worse). And they should be criticized, especially in light of the fact that the only reason they likely did it was so she could potentially set the record. But that says nothing about the girl’s readiness or capability as a sailor.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
A child, sailing alone, in the Indian Ocean, in winter, hundreds of miles from any shore, with any rescue ships two days away.
Insane. Just nucking futs.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
@Mnemosyne:
I think this is a really good point about football.
The sail around the world trip sounds very frightening and exotic, where we can all easily imagine her meeting some horrible and unusual fate, but we put children in harm’s way all the time (cars = #1, sports = #2?), and we don’t bat an eyelash.
What’s useful about the sail around the world thing is that it is very easy and safe for us to cast judgment against those parents because it’s a situation that isn’t even on our radar, but we are quiet when it comes to situations, like cars and sports, where we are just as likely to have the finger of judgment pointed right back at us.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
@Mumphrey:
The United States doesn’t let 16-year-olds drink. In Europe, that’s the drinking age in most places (assuming they have a drinking age at all). So are US 16-year-olds so much less mature than, say, a Spanish 16-year-old that they must be more protected from the dangers of drink than anywhere else in the world?
Oddly, in most of Europe 16-year-olds are considered to be too young to drive. Weird how we’ve reversed those two here.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
LOL, because kids get killed playing football, parents should just let them sail around the world by themselves. I’m loving this logic. And if you let your kid play football or don’t throw a fit about other people letting their kids play football, you can’t say anything about parents who let their kids sail around the world by themselves.
Laughing out loud.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
I blame the cult of technology. No one would have let kids do this before GPS and sat phones, etc. All that tech stuff makes sailing quite a bit easier and makes people feel it’s safe. Sailing is never 100% safe—not on the open ocean, at least.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
@Joe Bauers:
Insane. Just nucking futs.
Why is it any more insane than an adult doing it? I’m an adult, and it would be insane if I did it, because I’m not a sailor. This girl is very experienced. I just want someone to explain why this girl is unqualified simply as a result of her age.
Sure, I think it’s kinda nuts, but I think it’s kinda nuts no matter who does something like this. But people do crazy, risky things all the time. Without any one of us here knowing anything about this girl other than what we’ve read, what is the magical thing about being under 18 that makes this situation particularly unique and dangerous?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Ditto. I was seven or eight when my mom showed me where the key to the house was hidden under a flower pot. From then on, I let myself into the house after I got off the school bus and had the house to myself for about four or five hours till my parents got home. No one ever thought anything about the wisdom of leaving a second-grader unattended.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
This is getting a fair amount of play in the LA area; anyway, one additional aspect to the story that is small but potentially huge; in the son/brother’s sail around the world, one of the problems he ran into was pirates. That was near Indonesia, apparently, so it isn’t like she’s been kidnapped…
...but, still, sending a 16yo young woman out in waters where there are hazards like pirates? Nucking futs, indeed.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
One aspect of the story not in the quote is that the people involved were criticized for letting her take a trip that would put her in the Indian Ocean during their winter, when it’s terribly stormy;
It’s also notable that going that particular route—westbound through the Indian ocean towards Madagascar—is some of the most dangerous, difficult sailing in the world.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Well, I guess there goes my plan to have my six-year old babysit his 5 year-old brother, at home, alone, with copies of Freaks and Audition playing on endless loop on the DVD players while the missus and I go to Atlantic City this weekend.
Thanks for the guilt-trip peer pressure, Balloon-Juicers.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
@The Dangerman:
But what about their countertops?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
@Tyro:
Think she was eastbound.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
@Olive Oyl:
Mt. Everest has had 4102 ascents to the summit by about 2700 different people. 216 people have died on Mt. Everest.
I think if there was another scenario where the death to success ratio is about 1 in 20, and parents submitted their child to that, the kid would be a ward of the state before you can say Child Protection Agency.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
@ Dangerman
One in every six climbers on Everest dies. Same odds as playing Russian roulette. And you say it’s not THAT dangerous?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
This is fucking crazy. Sure, lots of 16 yr olds are incredibly talented at what they do, and mature and amazing individuals.
But to allow someone who really truly can not adequately judge the risks of their decisions out on the ocean like this – it’s fucking crazy.
Sixteen year old people, no matter what kind of sensibilities we imbue them with, by and large they just can’t grasp the scope of what their decision will lead to in terms of outcomes.
That’s why we’re parents.
I wouldn’t let a 16 yr old drag race street bikes either, no matter how damn good a cyclist they were.
Give me a break. You put a 50 year old in this same circumstance and we say, “Well, he had all the right gear and knowledge. Good luck to him.”
But that person more than likely fully understood the ramifications. IMO, the 16 year old just can not.
And that doesn’t make them an infant or baby. It’s just reality.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Sailing ATW is very fucking dangerous. If my 50 year old partner wanted to. I would do everything to dissuade him. If a minor child wanted to….no. If an 18 yr + child wanted to, they better be good at fund raising.
If one wants to obtain personal fulfillment, there are so many other ways less dangerous and more helpful to mankind than this type of ego stroke. I’m sorry but when I saw the pre-trip coverage, I thought the family was nuts.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
@Steve:
I second this. The missing kid may have been the most intelligent, seasoned, reasonable 16-year-old ever, but trying to beat her older brother’s record had to have weighted her decision—not to mention her parents’ decision to allow her to make the attempt.
I don’t have kids of my own, but I was 16 once, and I’m very glad I got all the ensuing years of experiences rather than the chance to set a record doing something that dangerous.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
The Dangerman,
Everest is insanely dangerous. One in ten death rate, which is far, far, far more dangerous than activities like storming the beach at Normandy, becoming a heroin addict or walking the Trail of Tears.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
@Joseph Nobles:
Of course, if you actually read the story, you see that this girl (and her family) have been sailing for years and she’s an experienced sailor. Which in your mind is exactly the same as shoving your 16-year-old who’s never been on a boat before out into the harbor and saying, “Have fun and call us when you get back!”
June 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
The southern Indian Ocean latitudes—the roaring forties and furious fifties—are one of the worst places in the world for a sailor to get into trouble. Atrocious waves and weather, and essentially no rescue services from the coast of Africa all the way to Western Australia, a stretch of several thousand miles. Her getting into trouble may have nothing to do with her experience level—quite a few highly experienced sailors have come to grief out there on round-the-world races.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
There’s no difference at all between a 7 year old kid letting themselves into the house, a 6 year old kid walking to school, a 16 year old driving a car, a kid playing football in helmet and pads within minutes of a 911 responder….....and a teenager alone in a sailboat in a stormy ocean in winter.
Nope. None at all.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Wait, are we pro or anti nanny state? I’ve forgotten.
Shit happens at sea. The sailor was well versed in the risks, knowing the reward was great. I’ve been following her story, and while I wouldn’t encourage my daughter to do the same, I haven’t trained mine to be a seasoned mariner.
I hope they find her. I really do. But I don’t fault the parents. At 16, we’d at our risk-taking peak.
Also, have you been to Thousand Oaks? The place is begging its teenage population to either get out via glory, or via hard-core drugs. Between the two, I salute her choice.
Vale nauta
June 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
The point is, of course, that people who let their kids play football are usually close enough to their children to attend the games. It is not the feat that’s at issue but the utter release of a 16-year-old to the world.
And even being with your kids as you both court danger isn’t enough at times. Steve Irwin caught hades for introducing his baby to the gators. If there was ever any parent more up to the task of being safe while doing such a thing, it was Steve Irwin. But gaddam.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
@Seitz: Are you, yourself, fucking insane?
There’s a world of difference in your stupid fucking ignorant and ridiculous question.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Uh, faulty logic alert. There are a lot more injuries from football than sailing around the world because a lot more kids play football than sail around the world. Now, if you’re trying to compare football to “sailing” in the sense of sailing around the bay or whatnot, then yeah, possibly sailing around the bay is safer.
It’s pretty amazing that no 16-year old in history has ever done this and yet so many people are confident that it’s perfectly safe for a 16-year old.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
@Tyro: She was eastbound, as Dangerman said. She had to stop in South Africa for repairs: http://latimesblogs.latimes.co.....-town.html
That’s why her trip ended up being youngest around the world instead of youngest around the world unassisted and without stopping. An Australian girl pulled down that record recently.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
@Olive Oyl:
You mean the one that was essentially dragged up by sherpas? I’d say that this was more dangerous.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
@Vince CA:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
June 10th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
When I was 16, I railed against the laws that kept me from doing things until I was 18 or 21. In retrospect, however, it was probably a very good thing that I couldn’t go hang out in clubs, because I wasn’t anywhere near as mature as I thought I was.
The thing that makes me uneasy about this particular story is that as presented, it smacks of doing something strictly to get into the record books. I’m not sure exactly why, but that feels vaguely hinky to me, and makes me wonder if it was her choice, or if her parents pushed her in that direction.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
My kids are running guns in the AfPak boarders. You’all are just a bunch of liberal pantie wetters.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
@LarsThorwald:
Because there’s absolutely no difference in maturity level or ability between a 5-year-old and a 16-year-old. So why are you not teaching your 5-year-old to drive if he has the exact same abilities as a 16-year-old right now?
How are you people going to handle letting your kids—gasp!—go to college? Do you really think they’re going to magically mature far beyond their current capabilities in the course of the next 2 years and will suddenly be able to go to the grocery store by themselves when they reach 18 when they were much to immature to do it at 16?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, she’s very “experienced” at 16.
Shit.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
These parents must be insane. Who lets a 16 year old girl (or boy) sail around the world by herself? On her blog, she said that sailing around the world by herself has been her “dream since she was 13”. So fucking what. It doesn’t mean she can do it.
Oh, yeah, so you as parents let her do this? Coupla things I can think of that can go wrong. Pirates and other do-badders are rampant in this part of the world. If the rough seas didn’t get her, maybe the pirates did. Why would you let your daughter do this?
Now there are ships streaming to her help, including, I think some Australian navy vessels. How much is that going to cost?
These parents should be charged for any rescue attempts…
June 10th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
@Will:
Copied liberally from Wikipedia:
“The mountain, while not posing substantial technical climbing difficulty on the standard route (other eight-thousanders such as K2 or Nanga Parbat are much more difficult), still has many inherent dangers such as altitude sickness, weather and wind.”
Now, I’m not calling Wikipedia the be all and end all on such matters and obviously Everest IS dangerous. Even very dangerous.
Insanely dangerous? Not so sure.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
@Seitz:
I’m not a sailor either, but it seems to me that a solo voyage through harsh winter seas would require more experience than one could possibly have at age 16, especially assuming that childhood activities such as learning to use a toilet and attending school eat into those hours available for sailing.
This is assuming that anybody who knows what they’re doing would choose to be in those waters right now. I don’t get the sense that it’s all that common a choice among those who know.
And all this is in the service of what?
June 10th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
There’s a great documentary called Deep Water about the dangers of around-the-world sailing. It really can be a terrifying and deadly experience, even for the prepared.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Maybe they’re of Viking descent.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
OMFG. Corner Stone and I are in agreement about something.
Now I’m seriously done. The Four Horsemen just pulled into the driveway. See you at the Rapture.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
@Will: Either you misread the article or you’re stating the facts poorly. It says one death per ten successful attempts. That doesn’t include the people who give up and go back.
Everest is dangerous, but not 10%-of-everyone-who-goes-dies dangerous.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
@eemom:
Well, I didn’t say that, and frankly, I do agree that the parents were probably foolish to let her do something that dangerous just to break a record, no matter how skilled or experienced she was. However, there is a continuum in this country of what is considered acceptable and unacceptable parenting in terms of what a parent should be willing to let a child do for himself. Letting your daughter solo sail around the world is one extreme. Getting a fake ID so you can take the SAT on your child’s behalf is the other. If those were the only two options, I’d rather that my parents had raised me to be unafraid to take on the world than that they trained to be a veal calf incapable of fending for myself.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
@LarsThorwald: That depends. Is he a really mature and wise 6 yr old? Has he been babysitting for years?
Because then we’ll know he can judge risk/reward properly.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:54 pm
The HS my daughter went to about a dozen years ago now has two crosses in front of it where kids have died in entirely separate automobile collisions pulling out of the parking lot onto the main road.
The student parking is still full every school day despite that grim reminder to everyone who visits the school.
But this kid’s parents are out of their minds.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
@eemom:
Sure there’s a difference—the kid on the sailboat is less likely to die.
You may have an illusion of control knowing that your football-playing kid has a 911 responder close by, but if he gets his neck broken, that 911 responder is just as useless as a boat that’s two days away.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
The Dangerman,
That BBC article has Everest having a one-in-ten death rate, despite increases in technology. That’s the type of death you see in heavy, sustained combat. As I mentioned, that’s higher than the death rate for Allied soldiers storming the beach at Normandy.
One in ten means that for every two groups of five people – and most expeditions are larger – one person will die. I’ve seen accounts that the summit of Everest is littered with corpses, old and new. It’s too much trouble to haul them down, the snow isn’t heavy enough to cover them, so they just become part of the scenery.
Anyone who puts a 13-year-old in a situation more dangerous than combat, where the child must trudge pass dozens of visible corpses, is guilty of endangerment.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
@Darkrose:
“When I was 16, I railed against the laws that kept me from doing things until I was 18 or 21. In retrospect, however, it was probably a very good thing that I couldn’t go hang out in clubs, because I wasn’t anywhere near as mature as I thought I was.
True. But if your parents owned a club and you had been hanging out in the back doing your homework from the time you were eight, probably sneaking in to hang out for a bit once you turned thirteen or fourteen, I bet you’d be stunningly well-prepared to handle yourself at a new club when you were sixteen. That’s a better analogy for Sunderland.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
@eemom:
Hold on! Wait! Just freakin wait a sec!
Ummm, sailing is fun and should be enjoyed by all peoples, no matter their age??
That’s it. I’m going to adopt an 8 yr old, teach her to sail and then drop her ass in the Indian Ocean just so I don’t have to be agreeing with eemom.
Poor kid and all that, but it’s a small price to pay to retain my vanity.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Heh. My Baby Boomer sister just had her oldest child graduate from high school and went into squawling hysterics at the graduation ceremony over the emotional trauma of her baby boy growing up. She also got quite angry at me when I refused to write an essay under my nephew’s name to submit with a scholarship application which he didn’t even know she’d filled out on his behalf.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
@Spiffy McBang: Please tell me this is straight nasty snark.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Spiffy McBang,
The kid was one of the successful, right? He’s part of the one-in-ten.
From what I’ve read – Krakauer and the like – Everest gets far more dangerous the higher you get. People give up in base camp. You have to judge by the conditions at the top, which is where the body count really ramps up. That kid was in those conditions.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
@Tyro:
The sat phone is down. She had been having trouble. There are two signals and they don’t know if she is in a lifeboat. The weather there kills.
There is a massive rescue operation going on.
If the boat goes down to over 15 feet beneath the water, another signal will be sent.
This is a nightmare.
For an adult it would be terrifying.
For a sixteen year old, I can’t imagine.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
I wouldn’t even let my 16 year old kids look at groceries, let alone eat them.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
@Mnemosyne: It’s amazing that you think you have statistical evidence about the chance of a 16-year old dying while sailing around the world, when it’s never even been done before.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
but…..
No offense, but this is not permissive. At 16 I was allowed to drive from Chicago to Green Bay solo to stay in a hotel alone, race the next day, then drive home. That’s permissive. And perfectly within my maturity level.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
@Corner Stone:
Well, that’s certainly a compelling argument. You’ve really put me in my place.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
@Mnemosyne:
What is your sample size?
How many 16 yr olds do you have in the Indian Ocean by themselves to make this statement?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
@Seitz: Thank you. I’m glad we could civilly agree here.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
My former boss must be posting here—she literally refused to let her 16-year-old cross a busy street without her, but she was perfectly happy to buy her a car.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
@handy: ***SNAP***
June 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
@Spiffy McBang:
If my parents owned a club, I’d have grown up with the assumption that the regulars or the staff would be keeping an eye out for me. In a new club, nobody’s going to call my parents if they see me getting drunk and hanging out with a 40-year-old guy.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
I love how parents who almost certainly agree that “no one should tell me how to raise my kids” just love to tell others that their parenting skills suck or are sub-par or are too dangerous, etc….
16, 17, etc is plenty old enough to sail a fucking boat. Christ.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
I’m just glad that when I was 16, my parents encouraged me to learn the guitar, no matter how much they might have privately been annoyed by the loud sounds of me playing Nirvana and Soundgarden all the time. It was a lot safer than sailing around the world.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
@Steve:
It’s amazing that everyone here seems to have statistical evidence that you’d be better off shooting your 16-year-old in the head than letting her set foot on a sailboat since the chance of death is exactly the same.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
What is it about having kids that makes people feel like they’re experts on raising everyone else’s?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
@Will:
Clearly true.
Still, I find a world of difference given the fact that Everest wasn’t a solo attempt. There were adults there; certainly high risk, but manageable by a reasonable adult.
Solo sailing around the world at 16? Insanity.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Well, the big difference between teenagers climbing really tall mountains vs. circumnavigating the globe is that they climb mountains with experienced climbers, who can abort the climb if they get a bad feeling about it.
I agree, teenagers shouldn’t be coddled to the point where you are afraid of your 16 year old driving to the grocery store, but I don’t think 16 year olds have the emotional (note I didn’t say physical) maturity for solo global sailing. Like, the ability to turn back, abort, and give up rather than press on.
Also, it seems like she comes from a fairly loaded family. I’m sure there’s something about being pretty affluent that gives one a sense of entitlement and overconfidence about being able to navigate through life, despite the fact that pushing people around in society means jack on the high seas.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
Yeah putting on a football helmet and playing high school football is exactly as dangerous as sailing around the world solo.
Because only a small handful of people have ever played high school football, and a significant number of those who tried have died doing so.
I think the debate is worth having but just making up stupid comparisons does the opposite of making your case.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
@Will: If we’re specifically talking about the kid, then I certainly hope they were being extra cautious with him and willing to bail on the attempt if anything seemed wrong earlier than they might if it were all adults. As the article you quoted states, people get an ego burst when they see the summit and they don’t listen to their bodies telling them they should stop. If they guard against that, they should be in less danger.
If the kid’s done as much as they would expect of any adult who wants to climb Everest, and they’re using additional caution, I honestly do not believe there’s an issue. I understand why you might. I simply disagree. People are ready when they’re ready, and occasionally they’re ready for certain things far earlier than we would normally expect.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Yeah, yeah, yeah—most 16 year olds can’t be trusted to drive or use birth control, much less sail around the world, I get it….
But this kid was raised to be smart and independent. She obviously would have had to have a very strong sense of her own ability ever undertake such a mission. She obviously would have had to have an incredible sense of adventure, great courage, and a very sharp mind to do this. She’s a “pioneer”. Why is that such a bad thing?
What do most other 16 year olds do in this country with their incredibly leisurely lives? If they’re lucky, they participate in an extracurricular activity that leaves them so exhausted they can’t find the time to get into trouble. Most of them don’t, and literally just fuck off 50-80% of the time. How is that “safe” world a better alternative for building character?
This girl was obviously above the curve, extraordinary. The world would benefit from more young people like that. I really hope this story does not end tragically.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I swear, you people would argue about the time of day. Humph!!
June 10th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
@Citizen Alan:
And this is why I’m ambivalent here—I deal with helicopter parents on a daily basis. My favorite is still the 26-year-old law school applicant who didn’t know her password because her mother set up her account, followed closely by the juniors and seniors who try to register for classes for their kids.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
As a side note, anytime someone tells me mature, it’s a clear sign they aren’t.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I like all the supporters of the parents talking about how sailing a boat is safe and no big deal. Which is probably true especially compared to playing something like football. BUT, yeah that is not what we are talking about is it, because you are missing 3 key words in your statements—- AROUND THE WORLD. Although I will grant you they are just 3 little common words, that really in no way whatsoever change the context of the story and comments—right? yeah thought so
June 10th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
@Corner Stone: I am not sure about sailing, but you are certainly killing me.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Follow my link above to the Malcolm Gladwell article. Then tell me again that there’s no comparison between letting your child risk an early death on a sailboat and letting your child risk an early death from cumulative head injuries that make the brains of 50-year-olds look like those of people who had Alzheimer’s for 20 years.
The only argument you can make is that letting a 16-year-old sail solo around the world is more intuitively dangerous because we didn’t know until recently how bad these cumulative concussions really are.
Americans are notoriously bad at assessing risk, and I suspect this is yet another one of those times.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Well, let me look on the bright side. This thread proves my theory that Rod Serling, though ostensibly dead 35 years, really is still out there somewhere making new “Twilight Zone” episodes.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
@The Dangerman: “Thousand Oaks can be a fairly well to do area, but the yard of the Family home looked very middle class. ”
They’re probably well-off, but boat-poor. ie, they put all their money into boats and boating.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
@Corner Stone: I have to agree with this, and I’m no expert but it’s my understanding that the Indian ocean has swollowed up some of the worlds most experienced competitive sailors.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
@eemom:
Well, with the exception of maybe Church Lady, I think everybody here is going to be left behind, so it’ll probably be threads with five hundred comments over whether Obama or Hamsher is to blame. IOW, a day ending in Y.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
@Ella in NM:
I somehow got the impression she comes form a socio-economic class that allows her the option to sail around the world at age 16, not something that the majority of 16 year olds are gonna have access to.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
@Ella in NM: “What do most other 16 year olds do in this country with their incredibly leisurely lives?”
Live to be 17.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I’ve got an extremely bright 15 year old and if that was what he wanted to do, my instinct would be to say no (and that’s the massively easy call). I don’t think it would necessarily be right though. Piling on this girls parents without knowing shit about it is just mean. If you know how to sail, you have GPS, you know how to navigate if it fails, I don’t think there is a level of maturity that is going to help you if worse comes to worse.
What makes me want to say no is “Go ahead and risk it when you are an adult, it’s not on me”, except I’m pretty I sure I wouldn’t give a damn if my son was fifty and I was an old man with a beard down to my ankles, I still wouldn’t like it either.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
@Jon H:
Perhaps; I’ve heard the 2 happiest days in a boater’s life are the day the boat is purchased and the day the boat is sold.
She lined up sponsorship to help pay for the trip, FWIW.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:18 pm
@Punchy:
It’s like they feel it’s an implicit criticism of their own skills. “If my 16-year-old just sits around the house watching TV all day, then that must be what all 16-year-olds are like. In fact, my precious little snowflake is clearly smarter than most other kids his age, so it’s impossible for there to be a kid the same age who would be mature enough or skillful enough to sail around the world if my kid isn’t.”
June 10th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
@Jon H:
Yeah, and some don’t because they strapped on a football helmet and got tackled by someone 6 inches taller and 100 pounds heavier than they were.
And the 911 responders couldn’t do a damn thing about their broken neck even though they were only five minutes away.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
@Steve: “It’s amazing that you think you have statistical evidence about the chance of a 16-year old dying while sailing around the world, when it’s never even been done before.”
I suspect the numbers on solo sailing around the world would be enough to suggest it can be quite dangerous, even without considering age.
Even today’s electronics won’t help if there’s nobody closer than 1000 miles. They’ll find your body, or maybe the empty boat.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
I’d say it’s just generally dumb to sail solo around the world. But then I’ve never been particularly adventuresome.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
@Mnemosyne:
No, as a matter of fact, I made my kids wait until 17 to get a driver’s license. (I have three that have achieved that milestone at this point.) Lots of studies show that it’s better to ramp up to the responsibility of driving rather than just let them do it because they legally can. Kids who postpone driving slightly are far less likely to get into an accident than their younger peers.
I’ve got two kids in college and one in the Marines, and none of them have every had an accident or gotten a ticket. Lots and lots of thier classmates have been far less fortunate.
I’m not crazy overprotective. I really am very permissive, but if I can take some simple steps to avoid having to bury a kid before he/she graduates from college, I damn well am going to do it, and the hell with anyone who thinks that makes me a bad parent.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
I thought this was borderline tasteless when I first saw it, but now I see it for the genius satire that it is:
Boy’s Tragic Death Could Have Happened To Any Family With 20-Foot Pet Python
June 10th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Physically speaking, there must be a difference in the effect of extremely high altitudes on the body of a 13 y.o. vs. an adult. All these statistics on the death rates of adult Mt. Everest climbers don’t take into account the dangers posed to children with smaller lung capacities and whatever else affects the climb and descent. It’s good that the kid survived (his father climbed with him too) but it’s insane for the kid to go just because he wants to claim a record of summitting the highest peaks in all 7 continents. How many children have tried and succeeded in summitting Mt. Everest?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
I became a little seasick (and I mean that in the best possible way) just reading all these comments. Driving for groceries! Airplanes piloted by seven-year-olds! Fighting in wars! Going to college! Such extremes. Sailing is such a bourgeoise sort of sport in my mind, and the fact that the girl was trying to break a record…this automatically makes me think that risks were minimized in the interest of overachievement. Therein lies the parental neglect.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
@Mnemosyne: “Sure there’s a difference—the kid on the sailboat is less likely to die.”
Well, so far this kid is 1 for 1 on getting into trouble in the middle of the ocean, so football isn’t really looking that bad by comparison.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
@Mnemosyne: With respects, the Gladwell article focuses on pro players and is not about high school or younger sports nor is there any studies on that age group mentioned. Your citing of it adds little in this case.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
LOL, I can’t believe the
foolsfolks here who think it’s ok for a 16 yr. old to sail AROUND THE MUTHAFUCKIN’ GLOBE solo.This girl’s parents are fuckin’ idiots, and now she’s missing, possibly dead, because of their foolishness.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
@Ella in NM:
I played soccer, played violin in my high school orchestra, formed a rock band (I was vocalist/rhythm guitar) and smoked some grass with the guys in my band.
And I’m alive at age 30 with a masters degree and a good group of friends and family. Damn, I wish my parents had needlessly pushed me to sail around the world so, if I had actually survived, I could tell other 16-year-olds how mediocre their existences are.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
@eemom:
Quite frankly, the likely TBI from football is basically untreatable. Once you get a concussion, you’ve got a concussion. With more damaging brain injuries, there’s not much to treat other than reducing swelling. CNS injuries aren’t things that EMS or doctors fix, just help you adapt to the injury.
As for 16 being too young, it would be highly dependent of the person in question. I find it entirely plausible that a 16 year old would have enough experience to be as prepared as might reasonably expected by anyone attempting such a challenge. If the training is sufficent, then are at least some 16 year olds capable of making their own choices, or should they be allowed to make risky ones? I certainly think that some should. In all honesty, Americans really infantilize their kids in so many ways.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I guess we should be Netroots blogging for a Parent Patrol roundup of all the assholes who allow anyone under 18 to do things like race cars, skydive, etc. I mean, child endangerment OMG
This wasn’t done on a lark, you know. Plenty of other people besides the parents thought it was OK to let her leave port, not once, but twice. I hope the rescuers get to her in time.
Don’t worry, though, you’ll get your wish and this will not happen again for the foreseeable future, as no one’s going to sail anywhere if they aren’t 18. I forget which European country didn’t allow a, what, 12-13 year old girl to sail, and now this will make it 18+.
But asshole bad parents? You can think so, if you wish – but realize there’s a LOT more of them around if you hold that criteria.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
@Mnemosyne: People also let kids eat too much and become obese, and drive cars, and all of those, along with playing football, can be statistically bad for your health over time.
If you’re actually claiming that people who are saying that someone sailing around the world solo isn’t obviously, clearly far more dangerous, i.e. far more likely to lead to death, than those things, that those people are just “bad at statistics”—really?
I think maybe the debate is getting muddled here a bit anyway. Some people seem to be debating whether adventurous risk taking should be allowed at all or is immoral or etc. The issue here isn’t that at all, IMO, but a question of whether a parent, still responsible for a child’s well-being, is doing so by allowing what’s inherently, and now demonstrably, fatally dangerous.
And yes, it is a child, that’s why we have laws about this sort of thing and “age of majority” and all of that. After all, if this weren’t the case, why would anyone be debating what the parents did, at all?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
does “Mnemosyne,” or do any of the rest of you thumbs up-ers for this girl’s parents, have children?
Just curious.
‘Sides, it’s only fair, since you’ve already established that we who actually are parents have no right to claim any knowledge about raising children.
We need you experts to set us straight.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
@New Yorker:
But your parents didn’t teach you sailing. So you failed.
Sorry.
(I was just typing up a similar to response to that Ella drivel. Yours is better though.)
June 10th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
No matter how mature, for 16, this kid is (I hope) still a kid and not really capable of assessing risks and consequences. Her parents should never have let her do this.
There is new research that shows that teenage brains are still growing and that one of the areas that is changing rapidly in mid-adolescence – where this girl is—is in the frontal cortex, which seems to have a lot to do with teens’ willingness to engage in risky behavior. This girl may be amazing, may be mature, may be talented—but she is still a child, physiologically. That is why her parents are supposed to be setting boundaries still and acting like parents.
I do think Americans have become way overprotective of their kids, but a little balance between not letting your kid drive to the grocery store and allowing a child to sail alone AROUND THE WORLD would be nice.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
16 is too young to do something with that high a risk of dying, regardless of the “maturity level”. Live a little longer. Do something equally challenging but less deadly for a while. Then you can try something that’s likely to kill you, if you really must.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
@BombIranForChrist: Statistically not a very good analogy. The odds of getting killed in a car wreck are likely much much lower than the accident rate for 16 year olds sailing solo around the world. No matter how much she’s sailed, and how intelligent she is, she still has an adolescent brain. Their decision making skills are just not matured.
It’s irresponsible of the parents.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
One of my students this winter skied into a tree and died. She was with friends that day, as she had been hundreds of times. There was an adult with them, although not on that particular run. The young woman was an expert skier, just like the young woman in this story is an expert sailor.
Are either sets of parents unworthy?
Sorry, I don’t buy that. Nice uninformed blanket statement, people.
Why the outrage over this, because something bad has happened? Where was the outrage when she set out? I’ve been following her story for months. These aren’t bad parents. Not any worse than the parents of this girl who died in a skiing accident.
You can judge the parents all you want. We do it all the time. But in this case, such judgment is asinine.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
@Emma: Neocortex. Forebrain. Rational thought.
It kicks in around the age of 18, plus or minus a few years. Before that, kids are thinking with the lizard brain and are a lot more impulsive. Afterwards, more cause and effect thinking, more ability to evaluate risk and consequences.
The sailor could have been a rational mature 16 with years of experience on the water. Sounds like it, if her brother made it. Still, risks of the sea aside, considering piracy, drug runners, low-lifes in port, I wouldn’t have let her go.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
@Rommie:
See, now, not letting a 12-year-old to sail, I can see, because again the maturity and cognitive level of a 12-year-old is very different than that of a 16-year old.
To me, 16 is the lowest level of adulthood, particularly for girls, and it’s kinda weird to see how many people view their 16-year-old as the emotional and intellectual equivalent of a 5-year-old.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
The state doesn’t take the kids away from parents in Thousand Oaks, silly. The state separating families is for poor people. They just get picked up by other rich relatives.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Here’s another analogy-I was in my 20s (I think 24) when I went to basic training. Yeah, those 18 year olds (or at least some of them) may have been physically fit and whatnot, but mentally/emotionally-god damn, they were the worst fucking thing about basic/AIT.
Surely there is a nice balance between over protective and too permissive? Then again, I grew up in a small town in the mid 90s, before the current school shootings/bullshit concern about security, and I’m sure most of the latter day disciplinarian brigade would’ve shit their pants at life back then.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
The average modern American 16-year-old does not have the mental or emotional capacity to be pulling stunts like this. This does not mean that no 16-year-old could possibly be up to it. The most decorated soldier in American history first tried to join the military when he was 16, and got in just after his 17th birthday by faking his birth certificate. For millennia, the typical 16-year-old was a full adult, and probably had children, and on the “requires maturity” scale, taking care of children beats sailing around the world any day.
Our society is wealthy enough that we simply haven’t needed to teach young adults to be independent and mature at that age. In less wealthy societies, I have known 16-year-olds that were personally supporting their entire families. You can bet that they were as mature, in every sense, as most 25-year-olds I’ve met who were not in that situation. So the idea that a 16-year-old is somehow incapable of making fully informed decisions – up to and including taking their life into their own hands – is silly to me. As a description of most people of that age? Sure. As a description of all of them? No way.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
According to the most recent TAM, piracy actually isn’t all that dangerous, oddly enough. The pirates want money, so killing the captive is a really bad deal from their point of view. Certainly being captured by pirates is safer than climbing Everest by about 2 orders of magnitude.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
As noted, this has already been done by an Australian girl, Jessica Watson:
Lumping all people of one age group together is inherently dangerous. We should be looking at an individuals skill rather than simply looking at biological age. And insulting the parents when we have no idea of the family dynamics is simply wrong.
And sailing around the world is a reckless endeavour on its own. The Australian navy has been required to rescue sailors many many times at the Aussie tax payers expense. But I don’t think age alone is the determining factor on a successful voyage or even enhances the risk. It is all about experience, preparation and equipment.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
No, I would not allow my 16 year old child to attempt to sail around the goddamned world. Are we really debating this? Really?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
You can judge other people’s children? Really? Get bent. It’s the pearl-clutchers like yourself that have made it imposssible for 12 year olds to walk home unaccompained without fear of the parents getting the CFS on their ass.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
@Derek:
Oh, for the love of—are you serious?
A child sailing solo—SOLO—around the world is not the same as a kid going skiing with others. The girl who died skiing could have possibly survived, as at least there were others around to get help or provide first aid.
A kid sailing solo is shit outta luck if anything goes wrong.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
eemom: No, I’m not a parent. But as an adult with my share of observational skills, plus the fact that I have been dealing with helicopter parents all my professional life, I can state with complete confidence that there are sixteen-year-olds that I would trust with my life while I wouldn’t trust their parents to wipe their butts without instructions. I also know sixteen-year-olds that are an accidents waiting for a place to happen… and they usually do, no matter what their parents do or don’t do.
You don’t know a damn thing about this girl, and neither do I. Maybe her parents are a pair of limelight-hunting arses and maybe they’re just letting her have her dream. But YOU DON’T KNOW. Yet you sit there in great judgment. As usual.
As for your kid, she (he?) sounds fantastic. Good for you for being a good parent. And when she (he?) is eighteen, you’re only choice will be to pray because she will be an adult and she will make her own decisions. And not all of them will be great ones.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
This actually isn’t such a new phenomenon:
Note the list of “Youth Solo Sailing Circumnavigations” at the bottom of the article.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
@eemom:
Nope. That’s why I’m not setting myself up as judge and jury for their fitness as parents. I don’t know them. I don’t know their daughter. It seems a little presumptuous for me to assume that their daughter is an idiot who didn’t know what she was getting into and her parents are monsters for letting her go.
There are mature 16-year-olds and immature ones. I have a friend who started college out of state 2000 miles from home at the age of 16. Should CPS have arrested his parents for letting him do that since, by many people’s accounts here, a 16-year-old is no better equipped to take care of himself than a 5-year-old?
Actually, the right you’re claiming is to decide on very little knowledge whether or not strangers in the news are up to your standards of parenting. I don’t think that having children of your own makes you an automatic expert on other people’s children.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
@Svensker:
A strange combination of overprotective and astonishingly hands-off and “permissive” in other ways, though I cringe a bit at that term.
In striking contrast to Europe, especially on the Continent (the UK is closer to the US in many ways along these lines) that you can’t help but notice right away.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
@Punchy: Please provide your assessment of the relative risks of walking vis-a-vis sailing alone in stormy winter seas. About the same? Maybe slightly different, but not worth worrying about? What, then?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
She had a blog
I climbed over to where it seemed the main stream was coming from and got a closer look. It was coming through at the throttle mounting – the throttle that is mounted on the wall of the cockpit was under water because of how heeled over I was when I gybed. Having found the leak, I shut off the hatches to the back compartment. I was extremely relieved to have found that the leak was above the water line and as long as I could get the boat back under control I could sort it out.
I think when things like this happen you go into mild shock. After the initial horror of seeing water pouring into your boat, your mind just goes into a survival mode and you don’t give fear or any new problems a thought. It’s so important to be focused on dealing with the problem at hand that fear becomes dangerous, it makes you hesitant to deal with things and knocks your confidence.
Back outside, it was pouring buckets of rain. I hadn’t bothered to get my foul weather gear on. I didn’t have time to. I didn’t notice the cold. Wild Eyes was nearly flat on her side and the running back stay was stuck the wrong side of the boom. I clipped onto the boom and climbed onto the end. I would rather not have done that, but under the circumstances there was no other choice. I just hoped that things would stay stable enough while I was out there. At the end of the boom I was holding on as the big swells rolled the boat all over the place. It was steady for a minute and I let go and grabbed the back stay and worked it loose. I got off the boom as quickly as possible and hurried to get things sorted out.
Once I was back on track with less sail up, things seemed to be going better. I had the boat under control and didn’t hear the water in the back any more. I was still dreading going back there to see what damage had been done, but extremely glad to have it stopped temporarily.
Does anyone really think she would have been more capable at 18 or most people at 40?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Axel Foley: ANYONE sailing solo is out of luck if they encounter trouble. That’s the thing about the sea. Unforgiving bastard at any age. And that girl may have better skills than all the self-supporting adults, who treat it as a place for drunken entertainment.
I live in Florida, ten minutes from a marina. Maturity doesn’t come with age very often.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
Great. Her dream got her killed. Good job.
Who cares what their motivation was? This was a needlessly dangerous thing for a 16 year old kid to be doing. Bad decision, bad outcome, bad parenting.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
@And Another Thing…:
Since she was trying to break a record, I think the accident rate for 16 year olds sailing solo around the world is probably, by definition, 100%.
That said, these aren’t random populations. The death rate among 16 year-olds driving is massively higher than the death rate among 16 year old race car drivers. Why is going 100-200 MPH safer than going 60? Because one group is generally random and the other is very, very, highly selected. The group of people sailing solo around the world is also very, very, highly selected.
We can’t say from this distance whether this was a good decision or not.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
@eemom: I’m a grandparent, why do you assume that everyone with kids would automatically agree with you?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
No shit…...REALLY??
See, this is why I wanted an expert perspective. Because it never, ever, in a million years, would have occurred to me that that’s what’s gonna happen when she’s 18.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
If she really wanted to sail around the world, why not go with a more experienced adult?
I have no problem with letting a 16-year-old sail. full stop. But sailing alone AROUND THE WORLD is another thing entirely. Same goes for her 17-year-old brother.
And I’m watching the Deep Water documentary right now on Netflix instant.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Freedom is the freedom to make decisions that I do not agree with.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
@Ella in NM: Therefore, she failed her parents and deserves death?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Anyone adult or otherwise ought to read this true story, Adrift of getting stranded alone out in the middle of an ocean. At least the girl has the benefit of satellite communications.
It is a compelling read, one of those riveting tales you start and can’t put down till you finish. At least it was for me.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
@Punchy:
That’s a mighty fine straw man you’ve built there Punchy.
ETA: Oh, great. According to wiki, there’s a 15-year-old who’s hoping to do it. Break that record!
ETA2: According to wiki, the girl was using autopilot. Does that even count?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
@Mnemosyne:
You were walking to school alone while you were 6? Was it over broken glass and uphill both ways?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
@malraux: “The pirates want money, so killing the captive is a really bad deal from their point of view. ”
I’m guessing they might take a different approach to a sixteen year old blonde American girl, as opposed to a crew of Russian sailors.
They could get the reward money, but have “fun” beforehand.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
@Aaron:
Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
@Hiram Taine:
I don’t. I’m responding to some comments above that assert that people who have their own children have no idea what the fuck we’re talking about because we’re all so busy smothering our kids with overprotectiveness and doing their homework for them and calling CPS whenever we see a 6 year old walking home from school.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
@Jon H: Or sell her after the fact….
She’s 16 – her call
June 10th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
I have never been a parent and admit that I am not blessed with an adventurous spirit. With those admissions, I can say without hesitation that I would have done all in my power to deny a sixteen year-old daughter’s attempt to sail around the world, alone, without stopping or assistance. If a niece or nephew were to come to me for support of such an effort, I would say no firmly and quickly.
Are this girl’s parents assholes? I think I would be more likely to describe them as dipsh!ts. But, the news about this girl is bad, and I suspect they are suffering about it. I don’t feel inclined to pile on or dream-demand that their other children be taken from them. I’m feeling very Pollyanna tonight, wishing this young woman somehow will be found alive and rescued – and that is all I am feeling.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
@Emma:
Then God or Allah or FSM help you.
You’ll surely need to be a recipient of their beneficent will to survive if you truly feel this way.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
@TuiMel: They’re like Mnemosyne – so convinced of their own superiority that their progeny could not possibly fail.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
@Mnemosyne: I’m with you. This isn’t some helpless creature. 16-year-olds are autonomous beings and this one is obviously more mature than the average teenager. And she’s 16. So another year-and-a-half would make it different? If this girl wants to sail around the world, she can sail around the world. I wouldn’t.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
I am surprised that these parents allowed this especially with the Somali pirates(other pirates too) around. There was the Brit couple who I believe are still being held in Somalia from last year. This is stupid.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
@Jon H: That’s certainly a concern. But its the same concern as her wandering around Cape Town, for example. Actually, around CT is probably more likely for her to get killed, as South Africa has a crazy high murder rate.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Scary when I find myself agreeing with Corner Stone.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
The chartered Airbus should be approaching the location of her beacon about now; how much does it cost to charter an Airbus (needed for the range)?
June 10th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
@Punchy:
Abby is (was) not qualified to make this trip. She had little or no off shore experience other than a few milk runs on “Wild Eyes”. At the conclusion of her first solo on the boat she struggled to bring it into Marina Del Rey. Photos of her sailing show that she knew little about proper sail trim and her “shipwright” father did a horse shit job of setting the boat up for long distance sailing. She left California and ended up stoppin in Cabo for more fuel as she was running through so damned much fuel trying to keep the batteries up. This has been a tradgedy waiting to happen since day one. Her Christian family (scrapping by in Thousand Oaks, btw) was hoping to cash in on her trip with the help of Jesus the Long Distance Sailor. I’ve been sailing for over 50 years and I wouldn’t have left on that trip with her level of preperation and I’ve got thousands of off shore miles! Her parents are morons and they were trying to cash in on Abby and her brother!
June 10th, 2010 at 11:57 pm
You helicopter parents made me laugh. Perhaps it’s best if your child never leaves the basement….wouldn’t want to risk a fatal car accident or drug overdose.
And of course, it’s impossible that any 16 year old anywhere is mature. Impossible, you say!
June 10th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
The parents’ job is to say no. Encourage, support, groom, educate, etc. etc., but AROUND THE WORLD ALONE ON A TINY BOAT? WTF? So what if the brother did it? More reason to say to yourself if you’re the parents, jeez, that was lucky, let’s not tempt fate. Well, I’m glad I’m not them, I hope it was quick, and may her soul be at rest. Amen.
ETA: How ‘bout them ol’ Celtics! Big Baby FTMFW!
June 10th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
@Rafterman:
Nope—it was the mid-1970s when people weren’t completely convinced that child abductors were lurking on every quiet suburban street, so my parents didn’t think it was a big deal for me to walk to school by myself.
I know it’s hard for younger people to realize this, but I had an amount of freedom that astounds me today, and my parents were generally accounted to be overprotective. I walked all over town. I took the train into Chicago with my friends and went to the Art Institute and Water Tower Place. I rode my bike anywhere I wanted. I drove my parents’ car by myself after I had my license. I had a job at 17 where I would pretty commonly work after midnight and drive myself home.
Honestly, one of the things that holds me back from having a kid is knowing that s/he won’t have anything close to the amount of freedom I had because I’ll have to deal with the tsk-tskers who are horrified that a 9-year-old with a cell phone and a map was allowed to take the New York subway by himself.
June 10th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
@The Egg: “I’m with you. This isn’t some helpless creature. 16-year-olds are autonomous beings and this one is obviously more mature than the average teenager.”
Just because someone takes on an adult role doesn’t mean they’re really mature enough for it.
Just look at any number of young mothers or teen brides. Or child soldiers.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:00 am
@Jager:
The only qualification she had was not being afraid of what she was getting into. Which doesn’t take skill, just ignorance. I feel sorry for her ‘rents, but I just don’t think they knew what they were getting into.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Indeed.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:02 am
I am not fussed about it at this point. Call me callous, but a little chlorine in the gene pool now and again is a good thing.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:02 am
@The Dangerman: “The chartered Airbus should be approaching the location of her beacon about now; how much does it cost to charter an Airbus (needed for the range)?”
What’s an Airbus going to be able to do to help her?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:02 am
@Punchy:
Um, asshole, I don’t smother my child. But I sure as hell wouldn’t let her sail the world ocean by herself, no matter how skilled she is.
That’s called being a responsible parent, muthafucker.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:03 am
By the way, can we please stop talking about Abby as though she’s already dead? That doesn’t seem to be at all certain at this point. Since her rescue beacons were deliberately triggered, it’s actually more likely at this point that she’s alive.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:03 am
@Jager:
I’m so pissed about this, I’m tempted to go to TO and kick her Dad’s Christian ass!
June 11th, 2010 at 12:04 am
@AxelFoley: Ooooo – burn!
June 11th, 2010 at 12:04 am
@Corner Stone: When I was twelve and my brother was eight we were walking home from school with a classmate of mine as well. My brother ran across a busy road and was hit by a car that knocked him a considerable distance. The adult woman driving the car went into hysterics and was worse than useless, I held my brother, whose right leg was over his shoulder and my friend ran to his house a little up the road to call emergency services (we were all latchkey kids).
Some people react well in emergencies and some do not, it doesn’t always have to do with their physical age. I had been a Boy Scout for some time and would have known to put a tourniquet on if the fracture had been a compound one and profusely bleeding. All the woman driver knew how to do was scream and act like a complete idiot.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:05 am
@Jon H:
Not a thing other than see the condition of the boat and see if she is in sight.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:05 am
@Jon H: from her blog:
June 11th, 2010 at 12:06 am
@Geeno:
Or convinced that their “progeny” is actually an independent human being with thoughts and desires of her own and not a 5-year-old in a 16-year-old’s body.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:06 am
ok…..it seemed impossible, but I’ve finally come up with an image that reconciles the two competing points of view on this thread.
To appreciate it, you’ll have to have seen Woody Allen’s classic “Annie Hall”—the scene where Woody’s character, Alvy Singer, is a little boy reacting to the guy named Joey Nichols.
“Nickels! Get it? Nickels! Joey Nickels! Five cents! Joey Nickels! Joey Five Cents!!” [painful twist of little Alvy’s ear]
And little Alvy—clearly possessed of wisdom and understanding far beyond the capacity of a standard child his age—wisdom that eludes the hapless Joey, who has no children of his own and therefore no idea what level of maturity or understanding can be expected from any child of any age—walks off rolling his eyes and muttering, “What. An. Asshole.”
June 11th, 2010 at 12:07 am
@Ella in NM:
See correction (and answer to your question) in caps.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:07 am
@Rafterman: I was when I was 7. In NY in the 70s, no less. It was pretty flat, and there was a lot of broken glass, but I had shoes, so it was cool.
We really don’t give kids nearly enough credit and we’re really bad at putting risks in the proper perspective.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:08 am
@The Egg:
So…clap harder and she’ll be safe?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:08 am
The helicopter parents… are… NOT… laughing…
June 11th, 2010 at 12:08 am
@Martin:
I may have missed any of your previous comments, so please excuse me.
Are you saying we’re not properly assigning risk to sailing round the world by yourself? And not assigning proper risk of a 16 yr old doing such?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:10 am
eemom: Your forte is vulgar attack, dear, not sarcasm. Try again.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:10 am
@skepticscott: K2’s death rate is one in four.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:10 am
@Corner Stone: Audie Murphy enlisted when he was 17. Went on to become the most decorated soldier in WWII. How many soldiers were drafted when they were 17?
A century ago, people finished school at 14, got married, had kids, got a job, ran the farm, mined coal, etc. Genetically we’re no different now than then. Just because we’ve inculcated a culture of irresponsible 16 year-olds doesn’t mean that 16 year-olds are inherently irresponsible.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:13 am
@Mnemosyne:
Is the family gonna pay for the rescue mission?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am
@Mnemosyne:
Right, any independent human being with thoughts and desires of their own should clearly be allowed to sail around the globe by themselves if they so desire. Well, it’s just common sense.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am
@Keith G: Ummm. Thanks?
I live to serve, you know that.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:14 am
File under; “Dear God, Americans are pathetic”
Al-qaeda could have written this post, sub-titled:
“US Citizens have become whining wussies”
It’s a tragedy for the family, everybody else needs to STFU and read some background before opining.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Lee_Graham
June 11th, 2010 at 12:16 am
@eemom:
See, that’s what I’m talking about.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:17 am
@Martin:
This is silly. Really? You’re really going to try this as a defense or justification for a 16 yr old child being set out on their own on the open water for no good God Damned reason?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:17 am
I’m in the “negligent parents” camp. First, at 16 the daughter is “minority” and therefore has no legal standing to make a life and death decision such as “Hey, I’ll sail around the world, m’kay?” She’s still 100% the parents’ legal responsibility.
From a developmental standpoint, a 16YO brain does not have the decision-making capacity of an adult. Period. Yes, they can learn many complex and demanding things but their ability to make decisions under stress is not that of an adult. This is a good reason that despite their lightning fast reflexes and hawk eyes, they do not pilot 747s.
As a parent of a daughter half this poor girl’s age, I ache, simply ache for her and share JC’s reaction to the parents. “The youngest whatever” records exist to feed the parents’ ego, not that of the child, and I cannot fathom such a vile pursuit.
That’s all I have.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Always fun to read non-sailors pontificating about something they know not. I’ve been there in a sailboat but it was autumn and we never saw more than 50-55 knts in the 24 days from Cape Town to Perth, West Australia.
There was one comment about the problems and dangers connected to sailing across the southern Indian Ocean in winter, a comment that was the most relevant about this particular situation. Abby Sunderland should NOT have been sailing in those waters at this time of the year – even the highly experienced European single handed sailing professionals plan their trips thru those waters for other times of the year. Despite the fact that the girl is a far more experienced sailor than most of those who sail for fun, she was given very bad advice, or forced, to sail from Cape Town after her stop there for repairs on her boat. The 24 hrs before she set off her emergency beacon had winds over 60 knts and seas over 30 ft, her boat was knocked down at least three times with the mast into the water, the last time wiping out her radar.
Others have mentioned that another 16 yr old girl has recently completed a solo circumnavigation but it was accomplished in a boat with a far more suitable design than the one that Abby is/was sailing – AND it was done at a time where the weather patterns were more conducive to safer sailing. Even so, young Jessica Watson had some nasty days.
The Australians have sent a plane to the last known location but any rescue will be carried out by one of three French vessels that have been dispatched to the area. The closest one, a deep water fishing trawler, should get to her location in about 30 hrs. A naval vessel is due in about 40 hrs with the third ship a few hours behind it.
Her parents do seem a bit obsessive about their kids becoming famous – and its all to show the glory of Jeeesus Keerist – they are fundamentalist home-schoolers with five children and a sixth on the way.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:17 am
She’s lived more in the last 4 and a half months than your kids are likely to in their entire life.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:18 am
Will the kid make the Darwin awards?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:19 am
@Martin: “Audie Murphy enlisted when he was 17. Went on to become the most decorated soldier in WWII. How many soldiers were drafted when they were 17?”
My father grew up poor on a North Dakota farm and joined the Navy in 1946. He was 15. My mother grew up dirt poor in West Virginia and married her first husband at 15. A few years later they had both divorced their first spouses and gotten married to each other.
I suspect in retrospect they both would rather have finished high school in southern California in a middle-class family with enough money to afford to sail.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:19 am
@Emma:
Whatever. Yours [note correct form of second person possessive] is ignorance of…....well, anything to do with common sense, much less child-rearing or spelling…....so I’ll let you have an extra turn before I try again.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:19 am
@Hamilton-Lovecraft: “She’s lived more in the last 4 and a half months than your kids are likely to in their entire life.”
Maybe. But sitting on a tiny boat strikes me as being mostly mind-numbingly boring.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:20 am
@Hamilton-Lovecraft:
I’m alive! I’m alive!!
Yeah Champ, you and Leo DiCaprio.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:21 am
http://www.darwinawards.com/
Either the kid should be nominated or her parents should.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:21 am
@Jager: If this is true, then yeah, the parents are assholes.
But I wouldn’t universally condemn the action without knowing the experience of the individual.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:21 am
@Somerville:
As a sailor, can you answer me this:
What does “single-handing” mean, exactly?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:22 am
@Amanda in the South Bay:
I think this is the key part. Does even the most mature, experienced 16 year old have the ability to assess the risks and be willing to admit failure? I don’t think they do. Nor do I think a 16 year old is capable of consistently making the proper life or death decisions on their own over a six month period. (For those who brought it up, I am not so sure the average 18 year old does either. However, a parent has a responsibility for the safety of a 16 yeard old so they should say no)
June 11th, 2010 at 12:22 am
@Jon H: Those aren’t really convincing examples unless you’re suggesting she’s been coerced into this somehow.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:22 am
@Hamilton-Lovecraft:
That is, without a doubt, the single stupidest comment in this entire thread.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:23 am
@JBerardi:
I’d be willing to provisionally argue yes. Not to go all libertarian, but surely freedom should have some allowance for doing stupid or risky things.
The major question in this case if a 16 year old counts as an independent human being.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:24 am
@S Brennan: “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.....#038;#8221;
I can’t help but notice that he took a hell of a lot longer to make his trip. He didn’t exactly rush it.
Presumably he didn’t have sponsors and overbearing parents to keep happy.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:24 am
@minachica: Can’t let gold like this slip through unappreciated. Well done.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:25 am
@Corner Stone: What? The only thing I can think you’re suggesting is that the statement contained an air of lofty rooting—which is not at all the case. I only mean if that’s what she wants to do, then that’s what she’s going to do. No emotional anything attached. The end.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:26 am
She can sail anywhere she wants. I just don’t want to pay for rescuing her. That’s all.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:27 am
@S Brennan: “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.....#038;#8221;
I can’t believe I get to use this, but if somebeody managed to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and survive does that make it OK for parents to allow their 16 year olds to try it?
@Jamie:
Can we bill BP for the rescue?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
@LarsThorwald:
Heh. Well played.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Two things bother me about this solo global circumnavigation by one so young.
One; from all I’ve read/seen about it, the entire thing seems to be about breaking a record of one type or another (adjusted, apparently, on the fly after some equipment difficulties) as opposed to preparing for, and achieving the feat of sailing around the globe, solo.
It is a distinction worth making if the pursuit of the record meant the young lady would be sailing across the Indian Ocean during what press accounts all say is the height of the stormy season purely to ensure she was still young enough to set any record at all. That adds unnecessary risk to an already very difficult task, making it around the globe in a sail boat alone.
Two; the defining characteristic of my sixteenth year was my inability to imagine my own death. Seriously, I could not imagine dying, try as I might, or truly appreciate that behaviors I might engage in could end my life. I took a lot of risks and believed, in a visceral way, that I was immortal. It is the defining disease of ages 15-early twenties or so, that disabling injury and death are things that happen to other people, never me.
I’ve no doubt the girl is well trained, has a ton of experience, and was as well equipped in terms of her boat and safety gear as anyone could be. But I question whether or not she could really weigh the risks to her own mortality in any reasonable way. I am also not certain that, had she that capacity, it would have changed her outlook about the enormous undertaking she was contemplating.
It is in weighing the risks that a parent’s responsibility comes in, even for a young woman as determined and prepared as she. In considering the timing of her attempt, it is not unreasonable to consider the parents may have made a rather large mistake, even if she turns up alive, which I surely hope is the outcome.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:28 am
@Somerville:
From one sailor to another, thanks for explaining better than I. I could never figure out when she gave up the actual attempt (quite a while ago now) why she didn’t stop at the closest port and come home. I believe she had help after she rounded Cape Horn, negating the attempt at the record. I think she quit only a few hundred miles from Cape Horn. I haven’t gotten this trip from the beginning, her bullshit family, her web bullshit from her Mother and her incompetent father…
June 11th, 2010 at 12:29 am
@LD50:
If I ever have kids, that’s the one they’re climbing when they turn sixteen.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:29 am
@arguingwithsignposts:
Just sailor-talk for sailing solo.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:29 am
@arguingwithsignposts:
arguing… asks
To sail by yourself, with no other person on the boat. There are singlehanded races around the world and across the Pacific and Atlantic in boats from 6.5 metres long to 60 feet
French sailors dominate the sport because French companies sponsor them, their boats look like American racing cars with corporate logos covering almost every inch.
The boats, small and large, are designed and equipped for solo sailing with autopilots to steer the boats, solar and wind generators for power, the bigger craft have sat coms to provide voice and video to European media outlets. The boats are designed to be unsinkable and extremely difficult to turn over. The requirements are extensive and rigorously enforced.
Abby was sailing a 40 footer, a well built but not very successful racer that her family found on the East Coast and managed to convince a sponsor to buy
June 11th, 2010 at 12:30 am
@The Dangerman:
I don’t know you, Dangerman, so I don’t know what your experience with high altitude mountaineering is—but your previous quote on it from wikipedia, and this comment, don’t cast you as much of an expert in that regard. The primary danger on any high peak is not from the technical challenges, it’s the fact that you’re at high altitude and far from help. Pulmonary or cerebral edema seem to strike almost randomly, and without warning, and there is no such thing as rescue up there. I was once climbing in Ecuador with an experienced partner who had been over 6000m hundreds of times, but that time he got sick. Thank god that he could still walk, for we were able to get him 5000 feet down to safety and he recovered. If not for that, even the other three of us on the rope could have done little to help him. Anyone who has ever been involved in mountain rescue (I have: for five years) knows that once a person is incapacitated, getting them off the mountain is HARD even with a dozen able-bodied people and a litter to carry them. At 20,000’? No way. On Everest? Forget about it. Keep in mind that base camp is over 17,000’, for god’s sake—helicopters can’t get up there. (Although yes, one did evac someone from BC once, and it was a Big Fucking Deal for that very reason.) The fact that there were adults there was meaningless. Every single one of them was just as susceptible to being randomly struck down by HAPE or HACE —and once it starts (especially with HACE) you have only a matter of minutes or at most a couple of hours, to evacuate the victim. Every climb of a high peak is essentially a solo climb, whether you want to admit that to yourself as you’re doing it, or not.
On the other hand, an experienced sailor of 8 years with the best technology out there, including survival kit, at sea level, isn’t in any immediate danger at all. She can wait out the rescue that is coming on saturday, and if she’s uninjured she’ll be fine.
Climbing Everest? Absolute insanity.
Sailing around the world? Not.
For the record, I no longer climb big mountains, although I did for many years. I got sick of seeing friends die, among other things, and realized that it was probably just a matter of time until my ticket came up.
But on the other hand, I now I sail.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
@Corner Stone:
I don’t recall that I gave it as such a defense or justification. I recalled that I replied to your exchange:
Quite a few people trusted their lives to Audie, and rightfully so. That was my point – not all 16 year-olds are alike, which you seem to feel they are.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Her Dad has been quoted as saying he thinks she lost her keel by hitting something in the water; that seems mightly unlikely to me (what is there to hit?). I guess losing the keel means the boat flips.
Seems to me that placing the mast in the water is a fine way to snap it off…
...but I’m not a sailor, so I’m curious for your opinion on either of the above…
June 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Of those of you who are so sure that this girl and her parents are criminally insane made an offshore passage on a sailboat? Faced a hurricane at sea? Have the remotest idea of what’s involved? Do any of you know the Abby? Have any of you sailed with her? Seen how she manages risk? Evaluated her decision making?
Anyone? Bueller?
Didn’t think so. This girl has already done and accomplished more than most of you self-righteous blowhards will accomplish in your entire lives. Raise your kids the way you want to, hope for the best for this girl and her family, and kindly STFU.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Good thing there’s no such thing as an emancipated minor, what with all of the under-18’s being biologically incapable of caring for themselves and requiring a parent or guardians’s close watch until the magical 18th birthday arrives.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:31 am
@Martin:
Go to Sailing Anarchy and read what actual sailors think about her experience.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:33 am
@Jamie:
And I’m assuming you also don’t want to have to pay for the rescue of any adults who need it, correct? It seems a little silly to draw your line at only rescuing people who are 18 and over.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:33 am
@M. Bouffant: thanks. i figured that might be the case from context, but who among us land-locked folk know for sure.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:35 am
@Mnemosyne:
Was she emancipated? If not, she’s still her parents’ responsibility at age 16.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:37 am
Sailing a freighter through the Indian Ocean is dangerous. A solitary 16 yo girl in a small sailboat. That’s a suicide attempt.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:37 am
By the by, in case anyone thinks this wasn’t all about the record, here’s what she wrote when the other girl became the youngest:
that was when she was stuck in Cape Town getting her boat repaired.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:37 am
@The Dangerman:
For one thing, cargo containers can fall off of freighters in rough weather and, depending on their contents, float at or near the surface for a long time. Perfect for ripping the keel from a sailboat.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:38 am
@Hamilton-Lovecraft:
Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is pretty certain…in her brief 16 years, she’s already died as much as my children ever will in their many decades.
And to those people saying that letting exceptionally mature 16 year olds sail solo around the world is not a terribly bad decision, let’s examine the data. How many 16-year olds have tried? I bet they were all exceptional kids. And how many have died versus how many have succeeded? Don’t know about you, but the odds don’t look very good to me.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:39 am
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2.....nt-1823810
Nope, people who get in trouble for safer things, fine. I’ll pay for . People who try to set records in Dangerous stunts, they better have insurance to pick up the tab. What is some of the Somali Pirates got her?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:40 am
@Fallsroad:
Having read Into Thin Air, I think you’re vastly overestimating the ability of an adventure-seeker of any age to contemplate his or her own mortality when deciding whether or not to take a risk. Krakauer admittedly didn’t give much thought to the possibility of dying until things went horribly wrong and he survived basically through sheer luck.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:41 am
@Mnemosyne:
I meant to send that last one to you.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:42 am
@Mnemosyne: Who’s responsibility was this 16 yr old?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:42 am
@Jamie:
Charging people for their rescue costs is a bad idea. It’s penny wise and pound foolish.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:43 am
@Violet:
I was responding to the people claiming that it’s biologically impossible for a 16-year-old to make an adult decision. As far as I know, she is still a minor under her parents’ guardianship.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:43 am
I’m torn on this issue but I think I come down on the side that say we are unnecessarily infantilizing our children to a crippling degree. Out here in farm country during the wheat harvest 11 and 12 year olds drive $50,000 grain trucks and by the time they are 16 they are completely responsible for the care and operation of $200,000 tractors. In a couple of weeks I will be covering a 16 and under bull riding competition, where kids will be on the back of real 1500 pound bulls. It’s no wonder that the kids are getting fat if we don’t let them out of the car seat until they’re shipped off to college or boot camp.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:43 am
@Mnemosyne:
Everest Climbers should have enough insurance to pay the tab for their rescue.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:44 am
@Martin: So he was 16 and sailing somewhere? And other adults relied on Audie to get them back to port single handedly?
WTF? This is irrelevant and you know it.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:44 am
My grandfather ran away from home in Norway when he was 13, stowed away on a ship, and was ship wrecked on his first voyage. He returned to Norway, studied navigation, became a ship’s officer, and jumped ship in New York Harbor to become the illegal alien that established our family in America. That was in 1895.
Given our current boat building and electronics technology, my grandfather could have skipped all the study and on-the-job training, and just sailed to America over a long weekend.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:44 am
@James in WA:
Not an expert in either HAM or sailing. Never claimed either one.
From my view from the cheapseats, sailing solo, at this time of year, appears foolhardy for a 16yo; not too many data points to make that evaluation other than the obvious.
As for Everest, I didn’t say it was a cakewalk, did I? Nope, I recall saying it was highly dangerous. So, we are getting bogged down on the difference between highly dangerous and insanity. Assuming a risk profile that is roughly Gaussian (I have no idea), the difference in our positions would appear to be negligible.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:45 am
@Jamie:
So Jon Krakauer and the other people on Everest who got caught in that storm should have been left to die? After all, mountain climbing is always a dangerous stunt, so why spend the money to rescue them? Heck, why spend the money to treat the injured once they got back down off the mountain since it was their own fault they got injured?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:45 am
@James in WA:
I disagree. If you are gonna do crazy s…, you should bee able to pay for your mess. It works well enough for cars in the States.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:46 am
I can’t fathom any scenario in which I would allow a child of mine who was still under my care to freakin’ SAIL ALONE AROUND THE FUCKING WORLD. But, yanno, everyone can argue about the maturity level and brain development of sixteen-year-olds versus eighteen-year-olds versus thirty-year-olds, but who gives a shit? IT’S FUCKING STUPID AT ANY AGE. Same goes for the Everest-climbing, or extreme-football-playing, or anything stupid-dangerous that doesn’t actually help people or better the cause of humanity in any way. This was just narcissistic record-seeking.
The difference between sixteen and eighteen is that her parents could have, and should have, gone all Whitney on her ass and said HELL to the NO.
And can we kindly stop comparing SAILING AROUND THE FUCKING WORLD BY ONESELF to walking to school or running to the store to pick up some eggs? Good Lord.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:46 am
@Fallsroad:
Wow. Thank you. It is always refreshing—if somewhat astonishing—when someone with actual knowledge, equanimity and sense shows up in these threads.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:46 am
@justawriter: And every night and morning, who do they get their orders from?
And if they hit a rough spot and need a moment to make the right decision, who do they call on the walkie?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:46 am
Here’s the thing… what was the upside of doing this? What did she stand to gain by doing this that it was worth risking her life? Just to say that she did it?
16 year old kids aren’t good at doing that kind of math. That’s why parents exist.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:48 am
@Mnemosyne:
I didn’t say that. If you play a dangerous sport, you should have the funds and capability to fix your own mess.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:48 am
@justawriter:
Will your kids be riding the bulls alone and unsupervised, with help 48 hours away?
If she were sailing with her family, I’d think it was an awesome opportunity. But solo was a mistake.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:48 am
@suzanne
This. This. This. This. This. A thousand times, This. This.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:49 am
@James in WA: “It’s penny wise and pound foolish.”
Indulging the foolish and reckless with an unlimited safety net only encourages them, and that ends up needlessly risking the lives of the people sent to save the reckless idiots.
Remember the helicopter that went to save some lost people on a mountain in, I think, Washington, and crashed?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:49 am
as noted above, you can read more at Sailing Anarchy
be aware the posters on SA do live up to the title of ‘anarchist’
June 11th, 2010 at 12:49 am
I think we’re missing the real point in this thread: BJers suck ass at geography.
Somalia isn’t anywhere near South Africa, or Australia, or anywhere on her route for that matter. She had as much chance getting abducted by Somali pirates as any of us posting on our computers right now…
June 11th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Jon H – “Presumably he didn’t have sponsors and overbearing parents to keep happy”.
National Geographic was Robin Lee Graham sponsor and if you knew the story, it was his fathers dream before he was dragged off to fight WWII at age 18
June 11th, 2010 at 12:50 am
I was pretty sure I was Immortal until I got mugged as a 28 year old.@JBerardi:
agreed.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:50 am
@Emma:
Lordy sakes, there is speeding at the Daytona 500. eemom don’t take no fact free stupid shit. All you delicate flowers ought to know that by now.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:51 am
OK, this makes me a double-bitch, then. My problem is not so much her age (though I do think it’s stupid to sail around the world alone, period, let alone a sixteen-year old, boy OR girl), but the fact that rescuing her is gonna take a lot of time and money. I agree with whomever above in asking, who’s paying for it?
There is some boat racing thing (yeah, sue me. I have no interest) in which at least two or three of the contestants always have to be rescued. This pisses me off, too.
@Somerville: Reading your comment enforces my belief that she did it to break the record, which is a really silly reason to do anything. At any rate, while I hope she’s safe, I’m more pissed about the stupidity of her situation, and I hope that the next child of these parents won’t want to follow in her and the older son’s footsteps.
By the way, I was a latchkey kid, too, but I’m not romanticizing it. It was just something that had to be done.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:51 am
This brings to mind a friend’s experience who lived briefly in a commune in northern California when her child was an infant. She left after a couple of months because the parents allowed their young children to run naked and unwatched through the brush, in which there were rattlers. The parents said, “If their karma is good, they’ll be fine.” Good karma for a child is having good and responsible parents. These were not.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:53 am
just to add to the fun this evening – what do you think about this?
Ferrari signs 11-year-old for Academy
June 11th, 2010 at 12:53 am
@Mnemosyne:
Perhaps I am – I am certainly no expert on thrill seeking nor neuroscience.
But the research regarding age and cognitive ability to ascertain risk and weigh consequences seems compelling, coupled with my own experiences at that age.
As I said in my comment, I am not at all sure that were she reliably able to gauge these things that she would have found the risks too great and decided differently.
I do find the record seeking part of this, which may have affected the timing of her attempt, somewhat disturbing, given her parents were clearly involved in the decision making process and are legally responsible for her welfare.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:53 am
@Mnemosyne: “So Jon Krakauer and the other people on Everest who got caught in that storm should have been left to die?”
That was May 26 of this year.
How many people need to risk their own lives to save the lives of the reckless?
June 11th, 2010 at 12:53 am
I am also on the fence about this. I think it is in fact negligent of the parents to allow this and judging from the information I have read about sailing, it sounds like she got bad advice and support.
As many have pointed out, 16 yo’s, on average, do not have the brain development to judge risk, assess consequences, either long or short term, and far over estimate their abilities to solve problems and tackle challenges. It’s late and I don’t have the literature to hand, but this age is just not cognitively mature as they will be when they turn 20-ish. Of course that is on average and we allow parents wide berth to make decisions about their kids behavior, so while I question the wisdom of these parents, I am not willing to let the state get involved and remove the other kids.
On the other hand I am sick and tired of people wanting it both ways. You want to do death defying shit or let your kids do it, fine. But don’t make me pay for your S&R and don’t expect sympathy from me when the likely event of death or injury occurs. I know it may sound cold-hearted, but I am tired of people taking fatal risks then expecting me to care when the statistics catch up to them. If this kid does die, these parents need to take responsibility for their stupidity and culpability, though I support their right to be this stupid.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:55 am
@The Dangerman:
I must disagree. I continue to maintain that a 13-year-old climbing Everest (or, well, anyone, for that matter) is just insane. But ocean sailing, especially for someone who is experienced, competent, and well outfitting, is a much, much safer game.
The point that I was making in my previous comment was that at altitude, you can be struck down randomly and with little hope of rescue.
With sailing, however, you know most of the objective risks that you’re facing—weather, issues with the boat, etc. And even if the worst happens, if you have survival gear (which she did) then you can wait for rescue.
The latter is very much not the case with mountaineering. And having adults around, should something go wrong, just means that those adults get to watch the kid die.
I’m not certain what you mean by the risk profile being gaussian (and I design stochastic control systems for a living, so if it were obvious, I think I’d get the reference), but I think that we’re pretty much at odds on this one. And I stand by my assertion.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:56 am
@S Brennan: “National Geographic was Robin Lee Graham sponsor and if you knew the story, it was his fathers dream before he was dragged off to fight WWII at age 18”
National Geographic is a non-profit. Especially at the time, they were unlikely to be pushing for a quick, sensational story. And they’d be accustomed to long journeys. Hell, the long trip with lots of stops on the way probably made it an even better story for them.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:58 am
All you child coddlers, god knows how we won the Civil War and WWII with teenagers.
Rinker Buck (15) and his little brother flew across the US back in the 60’s, and a teenage Mathias Rust challenged the Evil Empire and flew a plane to Moscow Square – having a bigger impact on ending the Cold War than Ronnie Raygun ever did (that and Chernobyl allowed Gorbachev to wipe the CCCP hardliners out).
June 11th, 2010 at 12:58 am
@JD Rhoades:
A Danish friend once told me that some Danes believe their society is so mature and egalitarian because so many of the “look, Ma!—I’mma set a world record!” types went off to sail the world and never came back. The Scandinavian version of the Darwin Award, she called it.
(Of course, some of those non-returnees ended up as my ancestors, because that’s why there are so many redheads in Ireland and Scotland. But then “maturity” is not exactly the first word that comes to mind in reference to Irish history over the last 500 years, either.)
June 11th, 2010 at 12:59 am
@asiangrrlMN:
The problem with your comment about “breaking the record” is that she had already lost any opportunity to do so. She was beaten by Australian Jessica Watson. Abby had already stopped twice on her sail which meant she was no longer ‘non-stop’ and the various delays meant she was no longer going to be the youngest even if she had encountered no further problems.
I really don’t understand why she left Cape Town when she did, knowing the type of weather to expect along her route.
Lots of people have brought up the Somali pirates and cute young girls all alone on the deep blue sea but reality says the Somalis ain’t never gonna sail that far south, their boats couldn’t handle the conditions and there aren’t enough targets for them.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:01 am
The helicoptor rescue from the Into Thin Air episode was above the Khumbu icefall at 19,000 feet.
Wanting to go solo around the world is one thing. Wanting to go solo in order to break a record is something else. I don’t really care how totally awesome her mad sailing skills were, she has virtually no experience. Seriously, sometimes a parent’s job is to say “When you’re older.”
June 11th, 2010 at 1:02 am
@Bob Loblaw:
Plenty of pirates making a living in the waters off Indonesia / New Guinea—which is where I believe her older brother ran into trouble. American media doesn’t mention the Micronesian pirates very often, because they haven’t taken any American ships captive recently, but as I understand it they’ve cost “global shipping” a lot more lives & dollars than the guys working from the Horn of Africa.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:06 am
@Corner Stone: You’re a retard, you know that?
Someone says they know 16 year-olds they’d trust their life to. You tell them they’re an idiot for doing so. I point out an example of someone a month out of 16 that saved quite a few US soldiers under fire. You wonder how that’s related to sailing.
It’s not related to sailing. I never said it was related to sailing. It related to the fact that not all 16 year olds are the the worthless shits you think they are. If we can accept that at least one 16 year old among the population of all 16 year olds has a level enough head to be given responsibilities that we would otherwise give to anyone just 2 years older, then we should be able to accept that it’s not unreasonable for there to be a 16 year old that is qualified and responsible enough to sail around the world. I’m not saying this girl was it, I’m saying that we shouldn’t automatically assume that this was some horrifyingly bad idea, which is a point quite a few people are trying to make, if you could possibly focus and try to follow along. Fuck, my 12 year old son is better able to follow a line of reasoning without getting distracted by the other conversations going on than you are. I strongly suggest you not take up sailing, regardless of your age.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:06 am
@suzanne:
If you’re going to shout about SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD, you might be interested in reading “Sailing Alone Around The World”, the book that captures the imagination of every sailor.
Anyone who spouts off about how reckless and dangerous this is should be able to show that they are themselves capable of handling and navigating a sailboat out of sight of land, single-handed. Tens of thousands of people around the world do it every day(added in edit: and without the aid of modern navigation equipment); if you don’t understand that, you should think twice about offer your opinion on how “reckless” it is.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:07 am
@Jon H:
Yes, I remember. Mt. Hood. (Oregon.) My own MRA crew was on standby for that one.
Your position is a very commonly held one, but it’s wrong. Why pay to save risk takers, indeed?
One clue that might cause you to take pause is that rescue teams are almost universally against charging victims for their rescue. You might consider pondering why that might be.
There’s even a facebook group for this: http://tinyurl.com/35nkjp5
Check it out and explore some links there, you might change your mind.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:08 am
@Anne Laurie: That wouldn’t make them Somali though, would it?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:08 am
@Anne Laurie:
Again, it looks to me like this kid died to for the cause of… overachieverism. I mean, is it worth risking your life for a personal accomplishment? Risking your life for the good of your community is one thing, but this girl risked it so that she could personally hold a record. What kind of way is that?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Because most teens think they’re immortal. That’s why they’re able to be trained to run towards gunfire.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:09 am
@JBerardi:
Actually, she’s not in her current situation because she thought she was going to beat the record. She knew before she left Cape Town that someone else had already beaten her to the record, and she chose to continue anyway.
Whatever’s driving her, it’s more than just having her name in a record book.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:12 am
@Calming Influence:
I’m sorry, tens of thousands of minor children sail alone around the fucking world every day? Oh, wait. No, they don’t.
And, as a parent, I would need a much better justification than a “captured imagination”. Again, she (with her parents pushing her) was doing something for the sake of doing something, not because it helped humanity in any way. She can explore her independence in countless other ways that don’t endanger her life to this degree.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:15 am
@Martin: Fuck off dumass.
This is a thread about a 16 yr old girl circumnavigating the world by herself. In the here and now of it, with the fate of the free world not at stake over her outcome.
Someone said they’d put their life in the hands of a 16 yr old, and I called BS.
You brought up a 70 yr old story about Audie motherfucking Murphy as if it had any god damn thing to do with what we’re discussing here, or some stupid bastard’s decision to put their life in the hands of a child in 2010.
Thank God for Audie Murphy.
But that stupid nonsense ain’t got a good God Damned thing to either what we’re talking about here, nor what some idiot has to say about their willingness to trust a 16 yr old with their life.
Yeah, Joan of Arc was a badass and so was Alexander the Great.
You’re a fucking fool.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:15 am
@daveNYC:
Yeah, I knew it was up there high, somewhere. Doesn’t lessen the impact of the feat: flying a helicopter at 9,000’ can be sketchy on some days, getting over 15K is pretty amazing and just goes to prove how hopeless rescue on Everest really is. Part of our incident response training for mountain rescue is designed to help us decide when to send in a helicopter for patient evacuation. The answer is: almost never. That evac on Everest was in itself an insane undertaking.
She has ~8 years of experience. That’s not “virtually (none).” (At least, if I’m remembering her web site correctly. Last time I read it was about a month ago.)
June 11th, 2010 at 1:16 am
@James in WA:
Sorry, it’s been quite a long time since my last stats/modeling class, but I don’t see how in any risk profile, gaussian or otherwise (and, if it wasn’t clear, my estimation of gaussian was pulled straight out of my ass, but this is Balloon Juice, so I don’t feel bad about it), that highly dangerous is all that much different from insanity.
Yeah, it sucks when the outcome of any stochastic process, with a number of unknown or poorly defined variables, means death; I’m still saying the sailing alone, at this time of year, is the height of stupidity regardless of the training or the equipment.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:16 am
@SRV
It’s might be BECAUSE the grunt soldiers in history have been in this age group that they make such great grunts. The same carelessness and lack of accurate risk assessment skills that makes a safe suburban teen drag race their Chevy while drunk or try to sail around the world also helps a soldier charge a machine gun nest. On the other hand, the average age of WWII and Civil War Soldiers was in the mid to upper 20’s. (We all remember the song right?) The average age of the Vietnam Soldier was 19. Which war went better for the US? Just asking.
@ Mnemosyne
I am not a sailor. I am more of a mountain hiker. And if the S&R people are called out and after an investigation it is determined you did not take the all proper precautions and were not knowledgeable, you are frequently billed for all efforts expended on your behalf. I don’t know if it is universal, but it was true in the White Mountains when I lived there. Sounds like a good policy all around.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:17 am
@James in WA:
I agree. The challenges at sea come down to judgement and skill to avoid or resolve. At 7,000m, your brain or heart can simply shut down – there’s nothing you can do – and I don’t think the effects of high altitude on still-developing bodies is well understood, to say the least.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:17 am
@Punchy:
As I have had to tell my children more than once, “It’s not about what you can do, it’s what can be done by others or by the situation to you.” I have solo backpacked in my “backyard” when I was her age so I know of the desire. But if you love life, there are limits. Going solo around the world is a pointless activity beyond doing it for the sake of doing it. And it is simply too dangerous to do alone. Period. Plain as day. I hope she was prepared to die but I hope more that she isn’t actually.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:18 am
@Mnemosyne:
I’d still argue that this was all about a personal accomplishment. Overachieverism. Personal tyranny, although I’m sure it was also re-enforced by the parental units.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:18 am
@Mnemosyne:
Poor decision making and the inability to conduct proper risk vs reward scenarios?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:18 am
@James in WA: “Doesn’t lessen the impact of the feat: flying a helicopter at 9,000’ can be sketchy on some days, getting over 15K is pretty amazing and just goes to prove how hopeless rescue on Everest really is.”
And as I noted, the recent incident on Everest goes to show that they might not even be able to get you down to 19,000 feet.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:20 am
@suzanne:
You’re apparently imagining tens of thousands of young middle class kids sailing Lasers in summer camp; I’m thinking about the rest of the world.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:21 am
@Calming Influence: What is your estimate for the number of people each day who are alone in a boat with nobody else within 30 hours of them?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:23 am
The difference between getting in life or death trouble on Everest or in the middle of the Deep Blue Sea?
On Everest at least we have a semi-defined starting point.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:24 am
@Calming Influence:
I’m thinking about the rest of the world, too. The rest of the world in which only one person her age ever achieved the feat, and did so with better equipment and conditions. The rest of the world in which this girl’s own brother barely accomplished the task.
I accept that life is full of risks, and that growing to adulthood involves assessing the nature of those risks versus the potential rewards. This is a BIG FUCKING RISK (and as I am not a sailor, I trust those who are more expert than I who said the same damn thing) with very little potential payoff other than the nyah-nyah factor. That goes for anyone at any age. (And, to answer the question, yes, I think climbing Mount Everest is stupid, too.)
June 11th, 2010 at 1:28 am
Boy, I don’t think I’ve ever seen comments fly this thick and fast – not since the torture arguments a few years ago.
I also go back and forth over this. I remember what I was like at 16, and I think I’d’ve given almost anything to have parents as encouraging, as supportive, as interested in what was important to me as this girl’s parents are.
So I can definitely understand why she’d want to do this, and why her parents would support her doing it.
But it was a damn idiotic thing to do. How much experience with long-distance solo sailing did she have before she set out? According to her best friend, her only experience in solo sailing is along the coast, delivering yachts to their new owners (her dad’s a yacht salesman).
What factors did she take into consideration when planning her route? Again according to her friend, she considered, and planned for, technological and equipment problems – not storms, not pirates, not any of the many, many things that can happen out in the open ocean.
I don’t automatically object to a 16 year old soloing around the world. I personally think it’s nuts, but don’t think I have the right to make that determination for anyone else. What I do think was negligent on her parents’ part was not insisting she take some practice open ocean trips first.
I think the difference her age makes is simply that teenagers as a rule tend to underestimate risks and/or overestimate their ability to deal with risks.
I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with Search & Rescue looking for her: that’s what Search & Rescue is for. It’s not like she’s depriving someone else who has a bigger right to the service. If she were older, or a guy, and in the very same situation, I don’t think people would be saying that she or her parents should have to pay the expense of S&R.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:28 am
@The Dangerman:
Well, it’s not without risk, to be sure. And you probably have a good case to make about it being stupid. (I disagree with you there, being a sailor, but whatever.)
But that’s not the beef that I had with you, it’s that you said that a 13-year-old climbing Everest with a gaggle of adults was basically okay, while this girl sailing alone in winter waters “fails the reasonable caution requirement.”
My point stands: they’re both alone. All those adults could keel over and be dead within hours, as could the 13-year-old. No matter how prepared they are. That’s what altitude can do. No amount of knowledge, no amount of gear, no amount of preparation can prevent it.
But this girl knows what she’s doing and has all that she needs to survive for possibly weeks. And when you’re sailing close to the equator, it’s always winter on one side or the other.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:30 am
@Jon H:
Well yeah, I agree with you. What’s your point?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:32 am
@Hamilton-Lovecraft:
If you set that to music, maybe it will make me want to sail around the world solo.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:33 am
Did no one tell this poor girl that if she got too close she could sail right off the edge of the world?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:33 am
@Corner Stone:
Which makes her no different than Jon Krakauer, who was ostensibly an adult when he almost died on Everest. It’s not like people automatically start making good decisions and can accurately assess risk and reward as soon as they turn 18, or 25.
I’m still waiting for someone to show me that this girl in particular was incapable of sailing solo. Generalizations and statistics about how most (but not all) 16-year-olds act are not actually predictive of how a specific 16-year-old acts. So far, it doesn’t look like any of her troubles are due to her inexperience or immaturity, except choosing the wrong season for sailing the Indian Ocean.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:34 am
@James in WA: “Well yeah, I agree with you. What’s your point?”
Sorry, no point intended for you. Just expanding on what you said.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:35 am
@Martin:
Problem is, we’ve got the mighty TECHNOLOGY that makes it possible for an irresponsible 16-year-old, or 46-year-old, to get themselves into the kind of trouble that will at best cause endless trouble and expense for other people. A century ago, any 16-year-old capable of seriously considering a solo sail around the world would have had a much better idea of the inherent difficulties and dangers of such an attempt. Any dreamy-eyed prodigy who formed the intent to try such a trip could not have solicited the funding to get a boat equipped & in the water without proving to more experienced persons that they had some chance of succeeding. And a 16-year-old with enough experience of sailing to properly weigh the risks versus the potential rewards… probably wouldn’t have set out in the first place.
@Somerville:
Wonderful. Maybe Sarah Palin can pay for the rescue mission, in return for all that godly publicity.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:35 am
@Corner Stone:
With modern electronics, searchers also “have a semi-defined starting point” as they look for Abby and her boat.
She set off two EPIRBs shortly after losing contact with her satellite phone. So far they are showing that they are in the same location – one is a personal beacon that should be attached to her survival suit.
To view a map that shows just how far away from everything the signals were sent from, go to PerthNow
June 11th, 2010 at 1:36 am
@Anne Laurie: “Problem is, we’ve got the mighty TECHNOLOGY that makes it possible for an irresponsible 16-year-old, or 46-year-old, to get themselves into the kind of trouble that will at best cause endless trouble and expense for other people”
I HAVE GORE-TEX AND GPS! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER!
June 11th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Just dipped into the Sailing Anarchy forum on this and there seems to be a difference of opinion of whether this trip was foolish or the parents are negligible.
What I love is the macho bravado all across the threads about “sleep for the weak” and how this young girl is braver than a thousand blah blah blah, and living life fast etc etc.
But then they want the world’s resources diverted to save one person in the middle of the ocean. They seem all about death defying feats but they want every submarine, spy plane, satellite, airplane, helicopter, satellite, and whatever deployed when something goes hinky and if the US military and intelligence community doesn’t spend every dollar, risk every life, and work every piece of hardware, then, why, they hate us citizens and only care about, well, I don’t know, but they seem to want the world’s navies at their beck and call.
Jeebus. I really do hope this young lady is okay, but can people please defy death on their own time and dime?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:39 am
@Mnemosyne:
You mean besides the fact that she’s almost certainly dead?
And again, I could be wrong here. But wouldn’t the very decision to continue her journey right into the teeth of this nastiness kind of write out the answers to your question?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:40 am
@Anne Laurie:
Except for, you know, the other 16-year-old who broke the record just before Abby sailed into Cape Town. Where are all of the screams about how irresponsible her parents were for letting her sail around the world solo?
I could only skim the posts at Sailing Anarchy, but the consensus seemed to be that Abby got into the same kind of trouble that an adult would have in the same circumstances and was not unusually irresponsible or took extreme risks.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:40 am
All indications are that she’s still with the ship.
And her brother did it at 17.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:43 am
@Mnemosyne:
Given the opportunity I’d be in favor of someone kicking those parents in the junk repeatedly as well.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:43 am
@Corner Stone:
Ok, let’s talk about the here and now. Tell me in your experience interacting with Abby how well she works around the boat. Does she know how to handle challenging situations? Can she make not just basic, but advanced repairs on her boat? How confident are you that she knows what seas she can handle the boat in? How experienced is she charting her course, the weather, reading the conditions and anticipating how to rig the boat? Can she handle the boat in a storm?
In your personal experience with her, is she level headed? How does she react in a crisis? Does she have the ability to abandon an course of action if she is uncertain of her ability to handle it, even if that might jeopardize the final goal? Do you think she could stop and completely abandon the effort and ask to fly home if she was in over her head, injured, etc? When you’ve spent time with her, how has she handled other solo efforts? Has she expressed confidence on her return? Was she rattled by it? Does she show apprehension before setting off?
Does she adequately prepare for a journey? Is she forgetful of things? Does she have a sufficient methodology for ensuring that specific tasks have been done? Can she improvise in a challenging situation?
How, in your experience working with her, does she handle isolation over long time periods? Does she become depressed? Does she panic? Is she adequately self-motivated and persistent for an undertaking like this?
If we’re going to talk about the here and now, then you should have answers to these things. Otherwise we’re only talking about the hypothetical abilities of specific 16 year-olds, and whether one could be capable of responsibly handling this effort. I look forward to you enlightening us on your here and now experiences with Abby since you are so eager to reject any parallel evidence that 16 year olds might be capable of such things.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:44 am
@Mnemosyne: “I could only skim the posts at Sailing Anarchy, but the consensus seemed to be that Abby got into the same kind of trouble that an adult would have in the same circumstances and was not unusually irresponsible or took extreme risks.”
One poster at Sailing Anarchy wrote:
The Australian girl wasn’t in the southern ocean in winter. I assume nobody complained much because it didn’t get much coverage and there was no crisis.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:44 am
@Corner Stone:
Actually, that’s far from certain, despite what some people have been claiming. The S&R people seem pretty hopeful. I’m still in “wait and see” mode.
The claim is that her age and inexperience led her to sail at the wrong time of year. Just from what people with sailing experience have said in this thread and at Sailing Anarchy, I don’t know that we can make that determination since it sounds like a lot of adults with more experience have made similarly stupid ones. IOW, I don’t think you can claim that she made that decision because of her age.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:45 am
@Jon H:
Ah. Sorry for the kneejerk response, then. It appears that I’ve been at the computer too long today, and this topic is a sore point with me.
That being said, your original comment was about risktakers being charged for rescue, and my immediate response was to take issue. That opinion should be taken in the context of living in Washington and only responding to (mostly) Washington issues, though. It is another matter if there is a widespread response—should rescue costs be transferred to the victim, for example, if they are lost on Mt. Hood but crews fly in from Colorado to help them? I think that most reasonable people would say “yes.”
Traditionally, I don’t think that that kind of logic has applied to sailors. It seems to be a recent innovation. And I am scared of where it could lead.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:45 am
@Mnemosyne: “I’m still waiting for someone to show me that this girl in particular was incapable of sailing solo. Generalizations and statistics about how most (but not all) 16-year-olds act are not actually predictive of how a specific 16-year-old acts. So far, it doesn’t look like any of her troubles are due to her inexperience or immaturity, except choosing the wrong season for sailing the Indian Ocean.”
EXACTLY! Being out on the water right now, in the Indian Ocean, is a very bad idea that no responsible adult should let their child do, regardless of any personal characteristics that individual child may possess. She could be Popeye the Distaff Frigging Sailor and it would still be a horrible idea.
Thank you, and good night.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:45 am
Well, that settles that. Zac’s got the last word on this little shindig.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:46 am
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, they were out there. A few weeks before she set out on her successful sail around the world, while on a practice voyage Jessica managed to sail into the side of a freighter, causing lots of damage to her boat. The Australian media was full of nay sayers and it continued for much of her trip – but it was the other side of the world and unless you are a sailor who reads outside the box, you would have seen none of the foofaraw in the American press.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:48 am
@MattR:
Do you actually think National Geographic would have covered Graham’s voyage if they thought it the same as jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge?
I read that story when it came out. Don’t recall any outcries over his irresponsible parents or anything else at the time.
Needless to say, all cases are different.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:48 am
@Somerville:
Oh, my. She’s almost squarely between Australia and Reunion Island, right on the border between Australia’s S&R territory and Reunion Island’s S&R. The closest land is 1500 nautical miles away.
What’s particularly odd is that she had apparently already forfeited her chance to break the record when she had to put into port at Cape Town for repairs. She said as much… and then said she’d keep sailing on anyway.
Breton Fisherman’s Prayer:
Protect me oh Lord for my boat is so small
Protect me oh Lord for my boat is so small
My boat is so small and your sea is so wide
Protect me oh Lord
June 11th, 2010 at 1:49 am
@AxelFoley:
do you know how to sail ? if not, then no room to comment.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:49 am
@Martin: What a fucking clown you are.
Yeah, because some 16 yr old somewhere in the world can handle their fucking waffle iron without burning down the house, I’m going to let them run a restaurant by themselves.
In the here and now a 16 yr old has no business out there by themselves with their life on the line.
Just shut the fuck up, simpleton.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:52 am
@Jon H:
That’s kind of my point. If this whole enterprise is so inherently risky for a 16-year-old to the point that no 16-year-old should even be allowed to attempt it, shouldn’t it have been a much bigger deal that another 16-year-old girl was doing the same thing?
Like I said, I’m not seeing a whole lot of evidence here that the mistakes she’s made are specifically because of her age or her level of experience. They sound like the kind of mistakes that experienced adult sailors have also made.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:53 am
@Mnemosyne:
Jesus, Krakauer was 42 during that expedition. Is that your best comparison?
Does anyone know why she didn’t go through the Suez Canal? That would cut out thousands of miles on her trip, and keep her out of the South Indian during winter. Or is it cheating to use one of the canals for this stupid record? Can you use the Panama Canal?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:53 am
@Mnemosyne:
She had a lot of (even more experienced) adults advising her on a continual basis, too. They all decided to go. Say what you will about desire clouding judgement and whatnot, but this wasn’t a sixteen-year-old making a snap decision.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:53 am
@James in WA:
OK, fair enough…
...but, cmon, from a stochastic point of view, isn’t having all the adults keel over a little bit of a stretch? I’ve heard of some shitty events on Everest or at altitude, but losing your entire team to end up truly alone would appear to be a bit of a stretch.
Compare that stretch to the fact that the more I read about this young woman, the more it appears that she was unusually dependent on her support staff; I guess that makes me begin to wonder the “solo” part of being solo when one is so dependent on SatCom to get their instructions.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:54 am
@Mnemosyne:
I hope so as well.
Reports have her in 30 foot swells before she hung up to check items on the boat.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:54 am
@Joe Bauers:
And what’s your opinion of the adults who have done the same thing? Who was supposed to stop them, and why didn’t they?
June 11th, 2010 at 1:56 am
@Corner Stone:
Hmm.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:56 am
@Anne Laurie:
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that there was a series of others her age that did accomplish it (including her brother).
I think we have to question how qualified we are to gauge the risks of this. It’s no small undertaking to outfit your kid for an effort like this – it asserts a pretty small population just from that angle, and to then have a fair number of irresponsible parents within that already small population to allow these young people to do this is getting on long odds. Considering that it’s almost impossible to do it without the knowledge and involvement of a larger community, that apparently didn’t try to intervene makes it even longer odds, particularly when someone from the same family had already just done it.
I mean, either we have a pattern of irresponsible parents (and surrounding communities) with access to pretty expensive sailing setups, or we’re not reading this as clearly as we think we are.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:56 am
@Mnemosyne:
“And what’s your opinion of the adults who have done the same thing? Who was supposed to stop them, and why didn’t they?”
Okay. So, basically, you don’t believe there’s any difference between adults and non-adults.
Understood. That’s a bit idiosyncratic, if you haven’t noticed.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:57 am
@jacy:
Clearly you don’t sail. You don’t know that these parents rigorously train their kids to sail. They challenge them like you never thought of for your kids… If you let our kids fly without you anchor; what could we achieve?
S
June 11th, 2010 at 1:58 am
@Mnemosyne:
And at least for me, my argument is that I really don’t care what adult sailors do. If they make a life and death decision and it all goes bad then that’s how they chose to take action.
But honestly, even though some of us were latch key kids at a tender age, do we really think that enabled us to make sound life or death decisions at pre-majority?
Because we could ride our bikes anywhere, or turn on the TV by ourselves at 8 yrs old. Were we really in any better position to evaluate risk?
IMO, no.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:59 am
@Smedley: “You don’t know that these parents rigorously train their kids to sail.”
In rough seas? Or in pleasant Southern California weather?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:00 am
@James in WA: You’re right.
I should’ve said, “I fundamentally disagree with your line of reasoning here.”
Thanks for pointing that over reaction out.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:00 am
@Corner Stone:
So, because my 31 year old neighbor fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into an oncoming vehicle, that proves that all 31 year-olds are incapable of safely operating a vehicle.
That’s an exact parallel to your reasoning here.
I correct my previous assessment. You might be a troll rather than a retard.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:01 am
@Corner Stone: You’re still not even in the right league.
How about those of us who were, at 16 or earlier, the sole financial providers for our whole families, including hospitalized individuals?
Your worldview seems really, really limited if your idea of the top end of maturity is a latchkey kid.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:02 am
@The Dangerman:
Heh. I deserve that.
Yeah, you’re right. I was mostly thinking of the kid, in that no matter what his team did, he could still be struck down with altitude sickness.
Compare that stretch to the fact that the more I read about this young woman, the more it appears that she was unusually dependent on her support staff; I guess that makes me begin to wonder the “solo” part of being solo when one is so dependent on SatCom to get their instructions.
You’re definitely on the money there—the same thing struck me, from reading her blog day after day. I mean, she was writing daily email.
But be that as it may, she is ultimately the only one on that boat. If the spinnaker is tangled, she’s the only one who can get it furled—no amount of phone support is going to change that.
On the other hand, no amount of coaxing is going to get a kid with cerebral edema on the Hilary Step to use his jumars.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:02 am
@Mark S.:
Yes, it is ‘cheating’ if you use the Panama or Suez Canals. Also, there is the problem of the Somali pirates if you use the Suez, sail down the Red Sea and out into the Indian Ocean.
The record Abby was hoping to grab requires the sailor to pass south of the ‘Five Capes’ – Cape Horn, Good Hope, Leeuwin (West Australia), South East Point(Tasmania) and Slope Point(New Zealand).
If you start in the northern hemisphere returning to your starting point is sufficient but if you start in the southern hemisphere you must sail across the Equator and back during the voyage – usually done in the Pacific.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:03 am
@Jon H:
Actually, I believe that you cannot necessarily judge someone’s maturity level strictly on the basis of their age. I also believe that 16 is pretty well-recognized as the lower limit of adulthood, which is why we let 16-year-olds drive deadly weapons and hold down jobs.
IOW, a 16-year-old is a young adult, not a child, which is why it’s bugging me to have people claiming that a 5-year-old and a 16-year-old are at the same level of emotional and intellectual maturity so therefore letting a 16-year-old sail solo would be exactly the same as letting a 5-year-old do it.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:04 am
@Mnemosyne: “I also believe that 16 is pretty well-recognized as the lower limit of adulthood, which is why we let 16-year-olds drive deadly weapons and hold down jobs.”
But they generally can’t sign binding contracts.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:05 am
I’m sorry she died in a sailboat, but luckily she did; if she had died driving home drunk at 16, none of you would have said shit.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:05 am
@James in WA:
I think part of the argument is that people will delay calling for help until it’s much more dangerous because they’re trying to save money, yes?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:05 am
@Corner Stone:
Because we were latch key kids, does that make our parents assholes because some latch key kids run into traffic when mom and dad are at work? Personally, I don’t think my parents are assholes, but you appear to think yours are.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:05 am
Look, I don’t understand what makes people want to do stuff like climb Everest or sail solo around the world. To me, that’s so contrary to the whole point of mountaineering and sailing: to enjoy the physical challenge, yes, but also to be able to enjoy the activity itself.
I mean, everything you read about climbing Everest is what an ordeal it is, how everyone’s sick by the time they reach the summit (if they reach it) and how they practically have to turn around right away to head back down. So think about it: You’re exhausted, half-blind, dehydrated, possibly a little crazy from the lack of oxygen… and on top of that, you can’t even enjoy the view for more than, oh, 5 minutes. And going down is just as dangerous as the climb up.
I love going up in the mountains. I’ve never climbed a “real” mountain (I’ve gone up Little Si, not even 2000 feet; and up to the Burgess Shale in Alberta, 7600 feet). But if I did, I want to still have enough stamina, enough margin of safety, and enough damn daylight, to really see things from the summit.
I feel the same way about sailing. The joy of sailing, in my opinion, is the sense of being one with the ocean, the salt air, seeing animals and the vastness all around. Putting oneself through the danger, discomfort and sheer boredom of extreme long distance solo sailing just… seems to miss the point.
Mind you, I’d be among the first to volunteer to go on a deep space mission, even at the near-certain risk that I’d never come back. So maybe I just have a different pointless-adventure threshold than most people :)
June 11th, 2010 at 2:07 am
@Martin:
I don’t know. How many 31 yr olds operate a motor vehicle after being licensed by the state?
And how many 16 yr olds sail round the world by themselves every day?
Personally, I doubt you could handle a waffle iron by yourself, as your pathetic reasoning here is indicative of a severe lack of mental capabilities.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:07 am
@Mnemosyne:
And if she had sex with a 25 year old?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:09 am
@Calming Influence: “I’m sorry she died in a sailboat, but luckily she did; if she had died driving home drunk at 16, none of you would have said shit.”
Hm. How many teenagers have circumnavigated the globe alone? Not many. If she’s dead, that means the odds of getting killed that way would be, what, 1 in 4?
As bad as the rates are of 16 year olds getting killed in car accidents, it isn’t 1 in 4.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:10 am
@Corner Stone:
Could I have done this at 16? Nope. I did not have either the skills or the emotional maturity to do it.
However, the fact that I was an immature dope at 16 doesn’t mean, ipso facto, that every other 16-year-old in the world is exactly like I was at that age. I had co-workers who were 16-year-olds who were emancipated, holding down jobs, and living on their own, something I could not have done at the time.
The fact that I, myself, can’t do something is not proof that it can’t be done, just that I can’t do it.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:10 am
@Martin: You’re not even trying anymore. This is a pathetic non sequitur.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:11 am
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Yes, that’s one of the many arguments. And it’s very true. I can cite one recent case here, in which a couple got lost on a technical route and actually dropped their gear, and then proceeded to wait 12 hours before calling for help. By the time we’d gotten to them, they’d been on a cliff for 18 hours, and (because of a storm) we were faced with a technical rescue on high-angle iced rock. We ended up having to call in about 10x the number of personnel that we would have needed six hours earlier, and of course it was much dangerous for all of the SAR folk.
But that is just one of many arguments against charging for rescue.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:11 am
@James in WA:
Jumars? Shit, now I have to go to the Almighty Google.
Anyway, fair enough; things going to shit over 8000m is not good for one’s life expectancy. This has reminded me to go back and check on that Rainier event from last week or weekend. Didn’t sound good, so I never followed up on the one missing party. I do want to do both the peak and the … I forget the name of the trail … it goes around the mountain. Getting late, brain is shutting down.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:11 am
@The Dangerman:
That’s the Wonderland Trail. It’s about 2 weeks, and you need to cache food/water/supplies at ranger stations around the trail, as there’s no way to carry enough all at once.
It’s something I wanted to do when I was younger and in better shape. Never got around to it, though, and doubt I’m in condition to do it now.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:13 am
@Somerville: Technical point to those trying to understand this – the trip under the capes is a shortened circle around the globe – it’s not considered a ‘great circle’ which is the maximum circumference around a sphere. The equator is the only line of latitude that is a great circle, all of the others are shorter, shrinking to a single point at the poles. (Longitude are all great circles).
The 5 capes journey is along a shortened line of latitude. The jog up to the equator is designed to bring it sufficiently close to a great circle distance, but in theory they could still fall short of that distance.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:14 am
@Martin: “The jog up to the equator is designed to bring it sufficiently close to a great circle distance, but in theory they could still fall short of that distance.”
I believe that was the case in the Australian girl who sailed around. Her jog to the equator wasn’t quite far enough. But since the official body who records these things doesn’t count teenagers anyway I think the girl’s supporters decided it was good enough.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:16 am
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty much this.
There’s no particular scientific justification for the age 18 cut-off. The poorly developed decision making regions of the brain really don’t assert themselves till the early 20s, not 18, yet almost everyone here feels that an 18 year old would clearly be acceptable for this sort of journey.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:16 am
@Corner Stone:
It depends on the state she lives in. In some states, with her parents’ consent, she could start fucking him at 15.
For future reference, you should probably note that she’s not the one who would get in legal trouble for having sex with a 25-year-old. He is. So don’t do it.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:16 am
Forget her age.
What the fuck is up with three countries suddenly spending all this time, money and effort to find a single white girl who went willingly into danger?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:18 am
@Andrey S: What does this have to do with sailing round the world?
Listen. Everyone who keeps trying to say 16 year olds can do shit. Yes, they absolutely can. Sixteen year olds do shit every damn day.
They kill people in wars, they drive cars to work, they bring home the bacon. They operate dangerous machinery. They bone people. They do shit every day. Can we all agree on that?
Absolutely none of that has anything to do with a 16 yr old sailing round the world by themselves.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:19 am
@CaseyL:
I can’t answer for sailing solo around the world, because I haven’t done it—but I can answer to the mountaineering question.
It all makes sense when the sun comes up. See the conical shadow Tocllaraju stretching eastward was an epiphany and a turning point in my mountaineering career. All the pain and struggle of getting that high, the crappy food, the multiple camps, the sickness – it was worth it at that moment.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:20 am
@Mnemosyne: I am probably on some watchlist after clicking that link. There are some weird quirks when it comes to the differences in how homosexual sex and heterosexual sex are treated. For instance in Canada, the age of consent if a female is involved is 14, but if it is male homosexual sex the age of consent is 18. On the other hand, in New Mexico the age of consent for heterosexual sex is 17 while for homosexual sex it is 13 (though that is currently being contested)
June 11th, 2010 at 2:21 am
@Mnemosyne: Wow. Ok, if you can massage that one off I guess there’s nothing that will throw you off your game here.
Alrighty.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:22 am
@Steve:
It’s pretty amazing that you can claim this, given the ages at which people have successfully taken on adult responsibilities throughout history. I will never comprehend the magical thinking that so many Americans invest in numbers like 16 and 18. There is nothing inherently different about those ages—they are simply arbitrary lines we’ve drawn for legal purposes in order for the law to be able to consistently say, “at this age you can do this”. One does not magically become wiser or more responsible at the stroke of midnight on one’s 18th birthday, and the line of maturity between 16 and 18 is incredibly fuzzy—and different for every individual. I wouldn’t let my kid do anything like this—but he also doesn’t have the tiniest fraction of the training and experience this girl had, and neither do I. I don’t know these kids and I’m not going to judge.
It’s one thing for laws to generalize for the purposes of treating everyone equally under the law. It’s another thing to fetishize ages like 16 and 18 as if they had any kind of objective meaning or significance. The obsession with the imaginary significance of these artificial dividing lines on an individual level is about as rational as our refusal to put 13th floors in buildings.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:23 am
@Corner Stone: To paraphrase Chris Rock, “just because you can do something, doesn’t make it a good idea”. There are quite a few people conflating what 16 year olds can do if they are forced to (war, taking care of themselves and/or others, etc) with what is a reasonable expectation of what they should do.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:23 am
@Jon H:
Generally, but not universally. We allow loopholes by letting some teenagers who have proven their maturity to declare themselves emancipated minors. A 16-year-old can be recognized as a full adult under the law by petitioning the court, and that adulthood would include binding contracts but not voting or drinking.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:24 am
@Corner Stone:
Isn’t the point that some 16 year olds are mature enough to handle something like sailing around the world and some are not? Some 16 year olds are more mature and calmer under pressure and in emergencies than some 30 year olds. Some are not.
In looking at what this young woman is doing, we are not making an evaluation of 16 year olds in general, but an evaluation of this one particular young woman. Unless someone knows her and is familiar with her background and experience, it’s hard to know if she’s prepared for this kind of undertaking.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:26 am
@The Dangerman: Anyway, fair enough; things going to shit over 8000m is not good for one’s life expectancy. This has reminded me to go back and check on that Rainier event from last week or weekend. Didn’t sound good, so I never followed up on the one missing party. I do want to do both the peak and the … I forget the name of the trail … it goes around the mountain.
Yeah, avalanche on the Ingraham. Scary stuff. There is a major avy alert out for my area too (Mt. Baker). I was chatting with a friend of mine today who apparently dated the poor fellow who was buried. Climbing solo on Rainier is insane, though—and this is why.
Re: that trail, it’s the Wonderland Trail. Takes about 14 days—but go counter clockwise. I’ve been meaning to do the same one myself, and everyone tells me “counter clockwise.”
I’ve climbed Rainier by several different routes; she is a harsh mistress. Harder than anything I’ve done in the Andes, by a long shot. Last attempt was a 17 hour summit day, via the Kautz Glacier, and we didn’t even make the summit—team member got sick within sight of crater rim. We turned back. Better to keep your team alive than to force the summit.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:27 am
@Catsy:
This. Whether or not most 16-year-olds would be able to sail solo around the world has very little bearing on whether or not this specific 16-year-old is able to sail solo around the world.
Which is why it was, yes, up to her parents’ discretion to decide if she was mature and capable enough to make the journey. Since we don’t know Abby, we can’t automatically draw a line and declare that she’s not capable of it based solely on her age.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:30 am
@James in WA:
I love flying into and out of Seattle and getting a close fly-by of Ranier. Coming in at sunset on a clear day is gorgeous. All those pinks and oranges on the snow. I always squint and hope I can see some climbers, but its never happened. It’s probably not even realistic from a commercial plane, but I’m always hopeful.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:31 am
@adolphus:
National Park Service says the average age at Gettysburg was 21.
WWII appears to be 26, for Americans. I’d bet the old world was quite a bit less.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:32 am
Posters on Sailing Anarchy are reporting that their news is reporting that they’ve found her alive and well on her boat.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:33 am
@James in WA:
Yes, but even Tocllaraju is “only” 20,000 feet; you can have that epiphanic moment at the summit.
My understanding of what it’s like to climb Everest is based on Krakauer’s book and on the IMAX movie “Everest” (which, IIRC, was filmed at the same time as the Into Thin Air disaster, but about a different ascent team). The movie made a huge impression. There’s a scene where one of the mountaineers has to traverse a stepladder across a chasm. She’s so exhausted it’s all she can do to put one foot in front of the other; I could practically feel how tired she was, and how terrifying the situation, where you have to be so very very careful with every step, every inch, no matter how awful you feel, because it’s so damned easy to put a foot wrong and fall to your death. There’s no margin for error, no comfort, no relaxation. That to me is the nutty part.
But I would never say people should stop climbing Everest, just because I don’t understand why they do.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:34 am
@Somerville:
No way they are going to put that kid in anything but karts and low powered open wheel cars until he is ready.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:34 am
@Somerville:
Which means that the riskiest part of these voyages takes place in Australian sub-Antarctic waters, the roaring fourties. Probably the most dangerous part of any of the world’s oceans.
I for one am particularly pissed off at these bozos since we have to send our Navy into harms way to pull their arses out of the water on a regular basis.
I’ve got nothing against the kid here, she should not be expected to show good judgement. Her parents on the other hand need their heads read.
Another name for a solo yachtsman, hazard to navigation.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:38 am
@Violet: Yeah, she is beautiful! I’ve flown in a lot from Denver, myself. Seems like the flight path from there is always on the northeast side of the mountain, which gives a good view of the Liberty Ridge route and a side view of the Emmons Glacier route. Few climb the former, but the latter is a trade route. Unfortunately, the penitentes pretty much hide the climbers on the latter.
Sigh. This is making me want to climb Rainier again.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:40 am
@Viva BrisVegas:
Or as the motor boaters call us kayakers, “speed bump.”
Still not funny.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
I would have never guessed so many liberal fascists frequent this blog. Thanks for proving Jonah Goldberg correct!
June 11th, 2010 at 2:42 am
@James in WA:
I seem to get one view on arrivals and one on departures. I always book a window seat on the left side of the plane for the views. One time we had a pilot who told us he got special permission to fly low and close, and we did. I know it was really unusual because in all the times I’ve flown into Seattle, I’ve never had another view like it. Still didn’t see any climbers that time.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Possibly very good news, via an abcnews tweet!
Let’s hope they have, and she’ll be rescued alive and in one peace.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:45 am
Abby has been found alive and well on her boat.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:45 am
@Mnemosyne:
This is where we fundamentally disagree. IMO, just because a small percentage of 16 year olds are capable of sailing solo around the world does not make it acceptable for her parents to allow her to take that risk. Largely because I don’t think that parents can make a definitive evaluation about whether their child is one of the capable few (and this is largely because it is difficult to simulate the challenges the child will face in order to gauge their reaction).
And regardless if she was capable of doing it, the parents are legally responsible for her and should not be allowing her to take on a challenge that is so risky and potentially deadly. Should an emotionally mature 16 year old be allowed to play Russian Roulette just because they understand the risks and are capable of pulling the trigger (feel free to change the number of rounds in the chamber until you think the odds of death match that Anna faced)?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:45 am
More details – definitely good news:
THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. —
A family spokesman says searchers have contacted a 16-year-old Southern California girl who was feared lost at sea and she is alive and well.
William Bennett with “Team Abby” said Thursday that searchers aboard an Airbus A330 spotted her boat in an upright position and made contact with her via radio. Bennett said Sunderland said she was doing fine and had plenty of food.
He says a fishing vessel is en route to pick her up.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:46 am
Damn – in moderation. Wonder what the magic word was
June 11th, 2010 at 2:48 am
@CaseyL:
You just described all mountaineering, CaseyL. It’s sheer torture from the moment you put the first foot out the door.
For what it’s worth, the crevasses on the Carbon Glacier on Rainer rival anything that Everest has to offer. And the whole thing creaks and groans at night as you try to sleep, almost taunting you.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:50 am
@Violet:
Thanks, Violet! Best news that I’ve had today.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:52 am
What a bummer that she survived. Now what will people have to be self-righteous about?
June 11th, 2010 at 2:53 am
@James in WA:
Now, this will sound strange in view of everything I’ve been saying, but I would love to climb Rainier just so I can hear that. Mama Mountain, talk to me!
June 11th, 2010 at 2:54 am
@The Dangerman:
Actually, once you get above the final base camp, it’s such a trial, that it becomes each person for themselves. If you fall, they will leave you. To help you is to basically resolve themselves to the same fate. So even though there were adults there, if there had been a storm, that would have been it.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:54 am
@Bob Loblaw: She was obviously irresponsible in activating her beacon if everything is now fine.
/snark
June 11th, 2010 at 2:54 am
Once, mid to late 90’s, a plane I was on was returning to Seattle on one of those PERFECT days…
...and the pilot did a full 360 around Crater Lake. It was fucking amazing.
Only comparable event was a pilot going over Yosemite Valley on a flight from Fresno to Reno ( and that meant one was low anyway given the proximity).
June 11th, 2010 at 2:55 am
Neptune didn’t want her, so maybe another of the Gods will settle up with her parents. She was upright and lost her mast. An Open 40 is alot of boat for anyone to sail, much less a relatively inexperienced kid like Abby. Glad she is safe, her mother and dad are still morons, esp the dad.
To clear up some confusion on this thread, an EPIRB beacon sends a radio radio signal that can be picked up by virtually all commercial and most private aircraft, commercial ships, etc. It is standard equipment for off shore sailing.
Rough crowd at Sailing Anarchy, I’ve been a member for a long time. If you want to get into a political fistfight, try their section called Political Anarchy…holy shit!
June 11th, 2010 at 2:55 am
All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she’d fall off the goddam horse, but I didn’t say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it’s bad if you say anything to them. – Holden Caulfield
June 11th, 2010 at 2:57 am
@Andrey S:
Couple things here. It seems like maybe you HAD NO CHOICE but to do this. And you pulled it off, so props.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to somehow consider it a good idea for 16 year olds to start providing for families’ well being.
Abby and her family HAD A CHOICE. No one’s family depended on this coming to fruition.
So please stop with the nonsense.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:57 am
she’s been found alive see perthnow.com.au
June 11th, 2010 at 2:58 am
@CaseyL:
Careful, someone might deem you a risk taker and refuse you emergency services were you to sprain an ankle on that thing!
But seriously, yeah, it’s pretty goddamn awesome. I man, FFS, who wouldn’t love to hear an ancient glacier cracking and groaning at midnight? Let’s add that to the list of reasons why people climb mountains.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:59 am
@Violet: Thank goodness for her.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:59 am
It seems like she kept her wits about her, too, which obviates most of what we’ve been blathering about.
I’m very glad she’s OK, and do not in the least begrudge her the book and movie deals probably waiting for her the minute she’s back on land.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:04 am
@Corner Stone:
What the hell is magical about sailing around the world? Is it that it’s dangerous? Yeah, it’s dangerous. It’s less dangerous than things you mentioned. So what’s special about it? The salinity? The humidity? Do you think it’s more dangerous to sail around the world than to go to war?
The whole point was that 16-year-olds can be quite mature enough to make a rational, informed, decision involving someone’s life, including their own.
Do you think people are saying “Every 16-year-old can go and start sailing right now”? No. They’re saying “If this person was in that category, it’s fine and the parents are not being irresponsible.”
June 11th, 2010 at 3:04 am
NY Times story, reporting she’s safe, boat’s upright ….
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06.....or.html?hp
Happier ending than you might have expected.
Wondering if Child Services is paying a visit to Thousand Oaks, in their daughter’s absence.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Actually, I think this sums up the differences in opinion:
Yes.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:09 am
@Andrey S:
Even under perfect conditions, do you think it is really possible to know this beforehand?
(EDIT: “This” meaning that the person was in the special few)
June 11th, 2010 at 3:11 am
@Andrey S: Give us all a break here.
Again, it’s not about someone being 16 and deciding they can go to war.
You know what, I’m not even going to bother. It’s too late and anyone who uses something this fucking stupid as an analogy just doesn’t deserve a response. Keep fighting the good 16 year old warrior and provider for family of four fight.
I’m just glad she’s alive and hopefully soon to be safe.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:11 am
@MattR:
A certain game of chance, of which the Russian version is apparently the national sport of Vietnam according to Michael Cimino.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:13 am
@MattR:
A certain game of chance, of which the Russian version is apparently the national sport of Vietnam according to Michael Cimino.
ETA: Of course then I tripped the stupid thing because the word was in my original link.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:16 am
@Andrey S:
This is hilarious.
Keep on wanking yo.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:16 am
@Corner Stone:
The point I see is that you haven’t made your arguments. You’ve told people to fuck off and shut up, and you’ve now said that you’re not going to bother, but you’ve yet to convince me that this girl or her parents made any bad decision.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:17 am
Glad she’s alive and well. And at Tenguphile, #367, THAT’S why they go looking for people, you dick.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:18 am
@MattR:
Yes, I do. Is it really that astonishing to think that someone could have a very good knowledge of another person’s maturity level, when they’ve known them for many years?
Looks like my last comment also got caught in moderation by the R-word. Great.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:19 am
I’d almost be willing to bet money there are people defending these parents on here who wouldn’t let their own 16 year olds drive from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe in January.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:20 am
@Mnemosyne:
The fact is it’s a fucking stupid thing for anyone of any age to do, whatever their motivation. However, presumably if she was under 18 her parents had a legal right to stop her from pursing her life-long dream because it was a fucking stupid thing to do no matter what her age. Perhaps if they had bought two more years the young lady would have wised up and realized that it was a fucking stupid life-long dream, one that could very easily have deprived her parents of a child and erased the chance to have kids of her own, and generally use her drive, intelligence and grit to do something useful for the world rather than doing something that is just plain fucking stupid.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:26 am
@Andrey S:
How long has a 16 year old been at, or near, their current maturity level? Even a parent has only known the current version of their child for a couple years. And I just don’t think that a 16 year old has been through enough experiences for anyone to be able to make a judgement about their ability to make good, quick decisions during extremely stressful situations.
(EDIT: I suppose it is possible for a miniscule minority, but given the potential consequences I don’t think parents should be allowed to make that determination on their own)
Unfortunately it is past my bed time so I will try and remember to check back tomorrow.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:29 am
@The Dangerman:
Yeah, sometimes I forget that I’m not posting to climbers’ boards here.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:33 am
@Will:
I was going to mention this movie as well. It is currently streaming on Netflix for those with that service. The film is interesting for many reasons notably the copious archival film footage, documentary evidence and (due to the relative recentness of the depicted events) numerous interviews with people broadly connected to the events.
The focus of the film is an utterly unprepared man with little to no sailing experience who embarks on a solo around the world sailing trip. The film is an attempt to explain his decision to enter the race as well as his actions as the race progressed. The other sailors in the competion are very different men but all are accomplished at sea.
For the purposes of the conversation at hand it is the film’s thorough analysis of these experienced and prepared men and the different ways in which they dealt with both the unrelenting need for hyper-vigilance to changes in the conditions of weather and seas (as well as course and craft maintenance) paired with the unrelenting need for hyper-vigilence of their psychological state. Psychological strain can easily set in over months at sea alone. This is due to the tense yet monotonous nature of their daily routines coupled with their solitude. One senses that among these highly experienced sailors who surely possess broad skill sets (hull, radio repair for instance) that they can tap into if needed, that the sailing is second nature and that their real battle is staying sane over the months alone at sea. All of these men experienced, and dealt with differently, psychological strain on their voyages.
Having seen Deep Water a few months ago I feel I’ve gained a truer sense of the challenges that this young woman is facing. Sailing is a skill that can be taught and learned but I fear that, at 16, she may not have been able to prepare for the psychological stresses she was likely to encounter. I say unable to prepare because at 16 she likely was unable to even conceive of the fact that sustained, prolonged stress can cause one to experience mental impairment. At 16, I doubt she’d believe anyone who told her it could happen to her anyway.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:38 am
They found her and she is fine.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....lor-found/
June 11th, 2010 at 3:49 am
@MattR:
Let me try to put this in perspective. It’s sufficiently common for a person who’s 16 (or even younger!) to be mature that there exists a legal procedure to declare that – “emancipation of minors”, the details of which vary from state to state. Clearly, the legal system itself recognizes that there are teenagers who are sufficiently mature that they should, as a matter of law, be recognized as full adults, and recognizes a method to determine that fitness.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:05 am
The Grey Lady reports that she’s been found. Rigging down, but the boat’s upright and afloat. Australian Search and Rescue apparently was in radio contact with her and passed on a report that she’s “fine”.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:57 am
@Al:
I hope she was prepared to die but I hope more that she isn’t actually.
I think this is the basic issue here. I don’t think a lot of people ever have to make this level of decision. Be prepared to die. From something you do, or don’t do properly. We don’t think it will happen to us. Part of that is maturity, part is experience. I’ve know people at a young age who do dangerous sports and understand the dangers and the finality of dying. I’ve know old farts who never get it. The world is not an inherently safe place. It’s also not so dangerous that children can’t be exposed to it. And without exposure and experience most 18 yr olds can’t make good decisions either.
With some of the things I’ve experienced, I never expected to get to be 20. I’ve lived 3 times longer than that and still haven’t been able to do the one thing I’ve always wanted. Take off and land on a carrier. I wanted to sail around the world until I owned a sailboat. I have been across oceans on ships a few times and during heavy storms. Not a lot of fun, much less in a small boat. The thing that worked for me? Being exposed to death at a very early age. I saw the finality. I also saw the waste of life in not trying. We all die. Should we all die at 90 in our sleep? At my age that sounds not so bad. At 16 that sounded impossible. Unimaginable. That’s part of what being young is all about. The possibilities maybe aren’t endless but they are possibilities. At 60 they are probabilities. And there is an end.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:59 am
All I know is, I’m pretty much done with worrying that someone’s ten year old overheard me saying “sucks ass” in the grocery store or caught me and my partner holding hands on the bus. If you parents can’t even agree on something like this, I’m giving up on trying to childproof myself in public.
Honestly, I was having consensual sex at a far younger age than anyone I know (and I don’t know a lot of sheltered kids), and I don’t think it did me any more harm than any sex I had after coming of age. I wouldn’t want to see any of the adults involved convicted of statutory rape, but we actually do have laws against some of this stuff, I am assured for a good reason, and I’m guessing the authorities wouldn’t have had me evaluated for maturity before charging them (though I’d like to see it).
There are extraordinary kids, but we have to have standards for all the kids because you often can’t spot the capable or mature ones till after something happens. I kind of suspect that parents who left their sixteen year old home alone for 210 days would be pressed to explain themselves to the authorities. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t, but I bet they’d have to. And for what seems to me like a good reason: I do wonder if the next kid will feel pressured at an even younger age, and what the odds are that one’s extraordinary too.
Glad the kid’s safe.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:38 am
Count me in with those who say that 16 is NOT too young to go sailing alone. This is NOT like the idiot 7 or 8 year old flying an airplane – HER parents were stupid.
A 16 year old raised with confidence can do most anything. I’m tired of people second-guessing other parent’s decisions with little information.
I’m glad to hear she’s safe.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:56 am
@srv:
There was something I read about the memoirs of a WWII Lancaster pilot where he noted that he flew his twentieth mission as aircraft commander over Germany on his 21st birthday. At that point he was two years older than the next-oldest member of the aircraft’s eight-man crew.
The UK actually still has child soldiers—it is possible to enlist in the Army at the age of 16 (with their parents/guardians permission) although sixteen-year-old soldiers would not be deployed to a war front. The youngest British soldier in the Falklands campaign back in the 80s was a few days past his 17th birthday when he was sent to war.
June 11th, 2010 at 6:52 am
so now it is morning, the kid is ok, and all these childless experts on parenting get to say I told you so.
Whatthefuckever.
The take away from this episode is that I now realize exactly how disconnected from reality certain people are, and how correspondingly pointless it is attempting to have a reality-based discussion with them.
June 11th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Y’know who I trust to assess a 16-year-old sailor’s maturity level? A bunch of fortysomething shut-ins who spend their free time cursing each other out on the internet over political minutae.
Jesus. You people stand in judgment, and you can’t even circumnavigate whether BOB’s serious or not.
June 11th, 2010 at 7:33 am
Yeah, just heard the news on NPR. Good.
They “believe” in divine guidance and intervention. Wow. That could be another 400 comment thread.
In many comments above, folks compared this to driving or high school football. I do not see it. I wonder, how would professional risk managers assess this?
Is a life policy covering a teenage solo sailor cheaper than one covering the starting center at Austin HS?
June 11th, 2010 at 7:38 am
As a mom of now grown kids, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the maturity of the teen or whether parents are over or under protective or are insane to allow a kid to do this vs stifling a kid from following a big but extremely dangerous dream. We would have said absolutely not because the kid may come home alive & well but parents & grandparents might not be after going through all that stress & worry.
June 11th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Well, so Lady Luck smiled on this girl and she’s been found alive and safe. Very nice.
Unfortunately, that’s probably all her parents (and other supporters) will remember, chalk it up to “Jeezus Christ” and prayer, and never, ever think about all the possible ways that this story could have ended up so very badly. And how easy it would have been for the universe to go down one of those paths instead.
From all I’ve read, this trip would have been feckless for anyone to make at this time of the year. The fact that the individual involved was a 16-year old doesn’t make it any less foolhardy. This girl gambled on luck and won.
And yes, the reason armies the world over and throughout history have loved soldiers less than 20 years old is because it’s much easier to convince them for the sake of “honor and glory” to take risks that are more than likely to cause them to die. There’s a reason they’re called “cannon fodder.”
June 11th, 2010 at 8:09 am
@Andrey S:
It’s not common at all. Most states don’t have an emancipation process. The exceptions usually have to do with two situations: states that allow marriage before majority, or runaways who won’t or can’t return home and keep running away from wherever they are placed: they are therefore “abandoned” by their parents.
Runaways get a process so they can receive aid in their own names. Even there they usually take state custody and have the state accept the benefits, on the minors behalf, in a “planned permanent living arrangement”. Another option is to grant temporary custody to whichever unrelated adult the child is living with, so the child can enroll in public school.
Teenagers who have children aren’t even emancipated. Their parents are still their legal custodians. There are teenage parents who themselves receive child support.
It’s a practical issue, really. It doesn’t make any sense for the state to allow parents off the hook for child support and care and control. States are just loathe to do that, understandably.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:23 am
@James in WA:
If you feel a wise, mature 16 year old should engage in this activity then there is nothing that’s going to convince you otherwise.
I think that’s the only thing that’s been proven conclusively here.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:59 am
@IronyAbounds:
This this this.
Just because the story had a happy ending (thank FSM) doesn’t mean it wasn’t still an unacceptable risk to take for very little payoff other than bragging rights.
June 11th, 2010 at 11:49 am
I am so glad my parents did not have such low opinion of me as a 16 year old that many of you seem to have of the 16 year olds in your lives. Although I did not sail around the world, I spent extended periods of time in the Appalachian forests, alone.
This girl is amazing to me. Her brother is amazing to me. Clearly they know what they are doing and the parents are confident in their abilities. I agree that the timing was suspect (storm season and all), but it’s not like she was unprepared for this eventuality. She had all of the proper equipment and executed the survival routine correctly.
Whether you live or die is not based on whether your parents protect you from life. Just google Thomas Kirshbaum for an example of what can happen to middle age sailors near Santa Barbara.
This girl was totally prepared, unlike most 16 year old drivers on American roads.
June 11th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
@Somerville: I missed this one last night.
Damn but that’s a ways away from things.
I read the article and it skeeved me out. I like this part:
and this one:
THIS is what he willingly allowed his 16 year old daughter to engage in? This is what was expected and he said OK?
I guess I’m just going to fundamentally disagree with others here. This is insanity.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
@Robert Sneddon:
Precisely. Every one of us also knows of a 16 year old who went to college early, or became a parent or were somehow emancipated and lived on their own far earlier than most of us could have been expected to tie our own shoes consistently. Not every 16-17 year old has developed the skill, judgment and maturity to sail around the world.
But it is only recently that human beings of this age have been so infantilized. We really underestimate the abilities of our teen-agers, which is probably why we have so many who don’t do so well in this country. It’s VERY important to remember that there is a wide range of development in young adults in this age range, and it goes in both directions—precocious to immature. In my own family, my 15 year- old daughter is far more mature and cognitively advanced than her 20 year-old brother—which is sometimes incredibly frustrating to her. She regularly feels like she is stuck in an existence—demanded by the laws and rules of our society—that literally stunts her growth.
We don’t know this girl, her parents, her previous experiences. In terms of danger and it’s management, this young woman’s endeavor may have been, for her, akin to me letting my then 16 year-old son drive the 230 mile trip from our home to Albuquerque alone—which, I’m positive, would get me many, many negative and accusatory reactions from people on this site.
June 11th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@Ella in NM:
Why would you expect condemnation for that?
The conditions, route and overall environment are either completely non-threatening or at worst minimally iffy.
There’s a gas station or exit for a town every X number of miles and at any point a local police dept can be dispatched for an emergency. I don’t know where you live but in a similar vein, I recently drove from PHX to Tucson. Saw about a dozen or more state and local police.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
@Corner Stone: And for some reason the Edit feature is available but locked. Tells me I don’t have permission.
So, I’m assuming you live in NM from your handle and I’m just wondering if it’s somehow more tricky to get from there to ABQ then it is PHX to Tucson. I’m assuming there’s a highway involved?
In my younger days we would drive the 197 miles to New Braunfels all the time.
June 11th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
The 13-year-old kid who climbed Mount Everest is an EXPERT MOUNTAINEER.
The 16-year-old who was sailing around the world is an EXPERT SAILOR. She knows exactly what to do in an emergency. She was trained for all this stuff.
That is why she is alive.
You all are talking here like some parent just let a typical 16-year-old sail around the world.
It’s not even close to the same thing. By all accounts, this is a girl who is incredibly mature and, again, an expert sailor.
When I was 16, I had a glider license. I flew planes with no engines and landed them. My parents let me do it. And if we had not moved away, I would have done it a lot more – at 16.
June 11th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
The conditions, route and overall environment are either completely non-threatening or at worst minimally iffy.
There’s a gas station or exit for a town every X number of miles and at any point a local police dept can be dispatched for an emergency.
Phoenix to Tucson is no comparison, unfortunately. Because we have our own group of pansy parents here in New Mexico.
Because the drive is a lot more barren and full of potential for highway hypnosis than you might think.
Because you don’t know my kid.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
@Michael D.:
Again, precisely. People held back often never make up for the window of courage and skill that would have developed if we had allowed them to pursue what they were capable of.
But the helicopter parents would believe you’d be a lot better off now if your parents had kept you from flying those gliders.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
When I was 16 I once made myself a PB&J when no one else was home.
June 11th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
@Corner Stone:
Again, CS, the fact that you were an immature dope at 16 is not predictive of what every single 16-year-old in America is like.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
@Corner Stone:
When I was 16 I had traveled across the country and back, alone at 15. Stayed with a couple relatives along the way. Wandered NYC, Washington DC … alone.
Graduated from high school at 16, had dropped out of college to get a job and take flying lessons at 18, had a commercial pilot’s license a year later, and was a CFI teaching people to fly at 19. As a kid I had no fear of the world and didn’t listen to people who told me I shouldn’t do what I wanted to do. I’ve never regretted it either.
I do not agree with the premise of this thread. The kid seems able and prepared. Sir Francis Chichester was several times her age and experience and had a similarly rough time sailing around the globe alone. His account of a rough night in stormy seas is enough to put anyone at the edge of his seat.
Also very glad to hear that the lass is okay today.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I never met anyone who didn’t have a very smart child.
What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?
Fran Lebowitz
June 11th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
@Ella in NM: You, like me, understand that this is all just an American/Western view of the world. Most people here raise their kids to hang out at Burger King, do shitty in school, and generally be mediocre. Sorry, but MOST OF YOUR 16-YEAR OLDS are mediocre, X-Box slobs.
This kid had a desire to do something great. She got REAL good at it. Her parents facilitated that by letting her be mature and independent. She became an expert and she sailed for MONTHS and had a setback. Probably a straight-A student who has always been taught to have initiative.
I admire her and her parents.
This kid will go on to do greater things than all of of the (generally) lazy spawn of readers here will…She has ten times the maturity of THEIR kids because her parents didn’t treat her like a couch potato like they did.
Congrats America. Enjoy your obese, below grade level, scared to take a chance kids. Because you hold them back.
Full Stop.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
@Corner Stone: I actually believe you. I’m not surprised that making a PB&J at 16 was the best you could accomplish. I’m more surprised you were able to do it alone.
June 11th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
I have been thinking about this case, and gathering some facts before making a decision. And from what I can learn, this young lady was very accomplished at sailing and serious for her tender age. But more importantly, it seems she had state of the art gear and boat, and about everything else a pro would take on such an arduous adventure. For instance, her sailboat was unsinkable and designed to right itself if capsized, complete with watertight compartments and such. Plus she had all the safety equipment and ability to use it.
I am not a sailor, by any stretch, but it seems the only ding for preparedness and judgment was attempting to cross the Indian Ocean this time of year. But how dangerous is that with an unsinkable boat. And I have never bought and get annoyed at people who say, such folks who take proper precautions for safety, should not be rescued with others money, taxpayers. Jeebus, we are an adventurous species by nature, and if that was the rule, nobody would be allowed to leave their house, and no sailing of seas at all, or very little. That is just absurd to me. Now there is a level of negligence where this may not apply, but I see no evidence this girl and her parents came anywhere near that. You go out on the ocean and shit happens, all the time, to about every sailor, adult or not.
My first reaction was agreement with Cole on it being stupid. Maybe it was, but all of us humans do stupid day in and day out. It is a feature, no bug. At seventeen, I was way more stupid that this seventeen year old, it’s a wonder I survived at all just doing normal shit on land. People are different, and seventeen for some is like 40 and others of us it’s like 5. As long as she was mentally fit for it, and physically capable to help save herself if need be. Then I say go for it.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: Once when I was 16, I went three mornings in a row without making the bed.
People said I was crazy, but my mom believed in me. Over the years she had witnessed my capacity for not tidying up after myself on random mornings. She knew what I could do.
And after that glorious Memorial Day long weekend where I went Saturday…Sunday…Monday!! with no bedding adjustment!
I’ve been free since that day. And I have lived more life than any of you can possibly imagine by not being shackled to some false sense of hygiene.
It’s my life! And even as a 16 year old I knew I was an EXPERT NOTBEDMAKER.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:13 pm
@Michael D.:
I once foolishly tried an Elvis PBB&J, but failed miserably. It seems that even though I had years of history making PB&J, I was not in fact an EXPERT PB&J MAKER.
I just cracked under the pressure. There are some limits a 16 year old just can’t be left to test on their own.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:16 pm
@Mnemosyne: I actually saw death up close at 16 and younger. I saw people die and I saw people killed. Which aren’t the same thing at all, except for the result.
I’ve had a gun in my face and been told specifically it was my time, the first time at the tender age of 16.
So I take matters of life and death a little less flippantly than some. And those instances did not cause me to lose my “zeal” for life as Mr. Sunderland claims some do.
What did I learn from any of those instances as a young man? That’s debatable. But then again, I was a wise and mature 16 year old and by that time an EXPERT DEATHAVOIDER.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
@Corner Stone:
And A legend in your own mind.
June 11th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
@Michael D.:
Yes, Michael. I am a mom of four who held her tongue while her husband—a TERRIFIC father, by the way—- take our 3 year old on the roof and let him run around while he was repairing our cooler. The neighbors called the Child Abuse Hotline on us, by the way. Not a pleasant experience.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Another “Amen”.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
@Ella in NM:
Good sweet Christ.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
@Corner Stone: On second thought, maybe at 3 years old he was a EXPERT ROOFER.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
@Hamilton-Lovecraft: She’s lived more in the last 4 and a half months than your kids are likely to in their entire life.
Jesus, this still stands as the stupidest comment in this thread.
BTW, whoever mentioned Audie Murphy as a child whom many people put their lives in the hands of: Audie Murphy was 18 by the time he saw combat. So shut the fuck up.
June 12th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
@Martin:
The soldiers did what they were told by their superiors. They trusted their platoon sergeant, their LT or other CO.
June 12th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
just catching up and had to respond to this. This family lives nearby. The kids were practically raised on boats. If you’ve read her blog, you know she was well-trained and did exactly what she was supposed to do in that situation.
Had she succeeded, she’d have been held up as an example of American grit and character. Because of weather vagaries which are most certainly going to happen somewhere on a world circumnavigation, her parents are excoriated?
Gee, where were the critics when Zac succeeded? Strangely silent, despite the fact that he was the same age she was. My kids would not have been allowed to undertake this, but that’s because I don’t sail and my kids don’t know how to sail.
June 12th, 2010 at 3:57 pm