Abby Sunderland - The Debate

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

Somebody please explain sarcasm to Mr Doodles here...this may be the funiest thing I've read in a while...

Ooops, got caught up in the heat of the moment. My bad.

[meyermm]

Jessica Watson has already made millions from her trip this is not idle gossip. Book and documentary to come, those not living in Australia would not have seen the hype with TV stations fighting over the exclusive rights etc. She never owned the boat this was loaned to her, all the damage + improvements were provided free when she hit the freighter and the whole trip was carefully orchestrated. She received a lot of mileage by being young good looking girl rather than as some have suggested being at a disadvantage being a girl. There was a very well organised media savvy group behind the deal as I said this was all about MONEY

[Christian Van H]

Originally Posted by Doodles

Ooops, got caught up in the heat of the moment. My bad.

It's cool. Sometimes I try to inject a little humour to diffuse a situation. It comes from experience too. Seriously though...Do you know Neal Petersen?

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by Christian Van H

It's cool. Sometimes I try to inject a little humour to diffuse a situation. It comes from experience too. Seriously though...Do you know Neal Petersen?

Yes, started working with him during the 98/99 Around Alone.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

[/FONT][/COLOR]
For extreme environments where dismasting must be considered a 'normal' hazard one would think there would be separate antennas on the pushpit as well as the mast.

Thanks for pointing that out. We had a pushpit antenna on the last boat, but haven't yet gotten around to it on the current boat. I'm obviously not losing sticks frequently enough these days.

On the job list, now.

[Christian Van H]

I saw the documentary on the race, and ended up reading his book. Amazing man, amazing story. Of course, not being black myself, I cant speak from experience...

[Kanani]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Good morning folks!
Sun has just risen here and has been up for a short time where Abby is.

Current weather for her area shows 40 to 45 knots.

Like it seems I have been saying for more than 3 years these ever yonger people should not be going to sea on this inane and stupid fame seaking missions. I am not interested in any of these as individual people and how any one of thse kids may be better or worse that the other.

So as a general statement I can tell you without doubt that if I was where she is I would not be safe. YOU would not be safe either. So we must take today as a very difficult day for anyone let alone someone who should not be out there as she doesn't have the skills or maturity to handle it.

Not only is she in danger but this fishing boat is too. at 45 knots wind they might normally be 'jogging' 45 degrees into the waves, but here they have decided to go full steam with huge quartering waves in a boat not designed for stability.

It may be a good boat for it, Chilean Sea Base poachers, someone said? Its shoud be fast! But I have found that criminals don't look after their equipment very well, nor are they types of people that as crew I would like to rely on in heavy weather.

Abby is in danger from many things as we all know, not withstanding most of us have not sailed the Southern Ocean in winter (or at all).

Its interesting to note Gord's screw up in the dates of birth, which came from a screw up of mine on their ages, no its not the screw ups that are interesting, its that the next girl to set off needs to be 15 to 'break' the 'record'. The person after that needs to be 14.

Now we dont know the names yet of the 15 and 14 year old but lets name them X and Y. In this situation would they be considered to be in danger? 45 knots and a disabled boat 2,000nms from land and a clapped out fishing boat crewed by crooks 12 hours away?

Remove "Abby" "Jessica" and any other name and put in 16, 15, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11.... tell me where to stop.... 10, 9, 8..... still going?....

Lets hope the boat gets there in daylight and the crew does the transfer safely

By the way, I still can't believe how remote it is when there is no ships within a 40 hour run. Thats one lonely sea!


Mark

Ya Mark.....that's really not a "Sailing issue" though. It's an extreme sports issue.

This seems to be the biggest confusion on this topic at the moment. This young lady has many years of experience. That experienced involved the informative years of her life. There is a huge difference in learning a sport in your 30s or 40s from learning a sport in your formative years.

She never developed the fears and phobias that most of us had to battle. What she is doing is natural to her.

The age limit thing is quite disturbing when one extrapolates it. Again, I'm not second guessing her parents but at some point, it would become a problem. However, this is a social phenomena in every extreme sport not just a sailing one.

There are two things in life that really disturb me. One is people second guessing the raising of their children. The other is people second guessing the decisions of the captain of a vessel. This particular topic happens to encompass both.

There are a lot of us that have taken our children on long ocean passages. Most have been successful, some haven't been. I once knew a cruising vessel with 3 kids on-board. One of the kids was born between Tonga and NZ........were those bad parents???? I didn't think so at the time. They were rather amazing, accomplished people.

I would not have taken Kanani in those waters at that time of year. However, Kanani was not the class of vessel that Abby has. She was strong and very sea worthy but she was not as fast as her boat. My friend, Brian, has sailed those in several open ocean races and I will contact him and ask for his opinion. I thik he may have raced one around the world single-handed. I'm not sure but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

None of us have sailed the Southern Ocean in winter. I sailed from NZ to Antarctica in December and got hit by a freak storm.........that's just part of the Southern Ocean. It just happens more often in the winter.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Kanani

I would not have taken Kanani in those waters at that time of year. However, Kanani was not the class of vessel that Abby has. She was strong and very sea worthy but she was not as fast as her boat. My friend, Brian, has sailed those in several open ocean races and I will contact him and ask for his opinion. I thik he may have raced one around the world single-handed. I'm not sure but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

Here's what Jon Sayer, the Queensland boat builder who built Abby's boat, had to say: “This boat is bigger and faster than Jessica Watson’s boat. In Abby’s case she wasn’t physically or mentally strong enough to handle a 40-ft boat in those winter storm conditions."

source: Teenage sailor Abby Sunderland set to be rescued - Times Online

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Kanani

I would not have taken Kanani in those waters at that time of year. However, Kanani was not the class of vessel that Abby has. She was strong and very sea worthy.

The article in Lat38 puts that point very well... unfortuantely on the other viewpoint... I'll quote a bit longer as the paragraph is importnat:

When the great maxi French mulithulls attempt around the world records, their window is always November to about March. Why? Because as Adrienne Cahalan, navigator on Playstation's record circumnavigation said, "You don't sail in the Southern Ocean in the winter." You just don't do it. Not the Volvo, not the Vendée, not The Race, not nobody.

Latitude 38 - 'Lectronic Latitude

So too, Kanani, Sea Life, Spray, Gypsey Moth IV and everyone except a few naughty fishing boats.

So if Abby is as good as people say (and they say she is as good as Jessica Watson! What an accoldae!) she would have been brave enough to stand up to her parents, 'team' and the media and say, "Hey, thanks guys, but the record isnt important to me but the sailing challange is so I will wait till the Vendée racers do it."


Lastly, Sea Life ain't ever going to touch the Southern Ocean! No matter how young the skipper is!


Mark

[Laidback]

The last given Position of Wild Eyes was :-
34º 55' 9.353" South
74º 31' 52.5" East
------------------------------
The Southern Ocean :-
Cyclonic storms travel eastward around the continent and frequently are intense because of the temperature contrast between ice and open ocean; the ocean area from about latitude 40 south to the Antarctic Circle has the strongest average winds found anywhere on Earth.
Natural hazards: huge icebergs with drafts up to several hundred meters; smaller bergs and iceberg fragments; sea ice (generally 0.5 to 1 m thick) with sometimes dynamic short-term variations and with large annual and interannual variations; deep continental shelf floored by glacial deposits varying widely over short distances; high winds and large waves much of the year; ship icing, especially May-October; most of region is remote from sources of search and rescue
Sea temperatures vary from about 10 degrees Celsius to -2 degrees Celsius.
In winter the ocean freezes outward to 65 degrees south latitude in the Pacific sector and 55 degrees south latitude in the Atlantic sector, lowering surface temperatures well below 0 degrees Celsius.

[Hirophant]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Now we dont know the names yet of the 15 and 14 year old but lets name them X and Y. In this situation would they be considered to be in danger? 45 knots and a disabled boat 2,000nms from land and a clapped out fishing boat crewed by crooks 12 hours away?

The fishing boat, Ile de La Reunion, is French registered not a Chilean poaching ship, and not all Frenchmen are crooks you know! There's a pic of it on the Australian S&R website if you want to do an inspection for seaworthiness.

As for X + Y, Ms.Y does have a name, she is called Laura Dekker, but she will transmogrify into Ms.X during her voyage, probably on crossing the International Date Line! She never plans to be in this situation (down in the forties) since she's taking an easier route, but her boat is probably just what Abby wishes she had right now, ie. a spare mast and spare engine, both already installed and working. See her blog for pics of these... and ... what's that? .... there's also a photo of Laura holding her new Rescue qualification! So if she gets in trouble, she can rescue herself! Damned resourceful these Dutch teenagers!

[Get-a-Life]

Well I guess I am coming from a position of experience, Hobart, Tasmania.

The Southern Ocean is our playground all year round. The weather windows we try and plan on this time of year are, 5 days of bad followed by 3 days of not so bad.

We describe our area as the " roaring forties", "frightening fifties and the screaming sixties"

From Hobart the more adventurous sailors go around the bottom to Port Davey, not many try it in winter, wind, snow and sleet tend to put off the most hardy.

As for the Abby thing, wrong boat.

IMHO JW went around the world in hiking boots, Abby, because she was trying to break a record chose joggers. Unfortunately joggers don't last the distance, in this case Cape Town.

Maybe us older sailors have forgotten the fable "The hare and Tortoise"

The majority of RTW attempts have been done in the older style boats, must be a reason there somewhere.

Is she in any danger still?

With a mast still hanging on to the boat somehow, the answer must be a definite, YES! She needs to get rid of it quickly when it's safe to go out on deck.

The boat may be strong and high tech, but I wouldn't like to do a London to Sydney car rally in a F1, no matter who prepared it.

As for the costs of rescue, as I pointed out I live in an area where wilderness is everywhere and the Tasmanian taxpayer is sick of rescuing idiots.

For any extreme sport the person taking part should be made to have insurance.

Finally, would I be in the Southern Ocean in winter, in our boat which is prepared for it? Yes, but only when we judged it safe to do so and for the small hop around to the West Coast.

Cheers

[hummingway]

Fear seems to have evolved in the human genome as a mechanism that can inspire performance in times of trouble and also guide decision making. One poster has suggested that Abby doesn't suffer from the fear and phobias that the rest of us do but this is from her website :

"What made you decide to take this route?
"There are good and bad things about both routes. There’s a trade off. Where I’m going, it’s freezing. Where Zac went there were pirates. Personally, I’m terrified of pirates so I chose the route around the southern capes."

One of the issues with youth is that motivations are often less clearly understood and decisions are less deeply considered.

Someone else suggested that she wouldn't get rich and yet on her website she is seen in shoe advertisements. To my knowledge it is typical that when a personality is used for ads they are well paid.

Frequently Asked Questions - Abby Sunderland

"It has also been suggested that modern technology has made it safe to sail in waters and weather not previously thought safe but if that were true I don't think we would be having this conversation, that is unless by safety the ability to call for help when things get tough is what was meant."

It is probably unreasonable to expect reasoned, civil discourse from an internet forum but CF does do well and for that I am grateful. However every once and while you've got to shake your head and ask, "Just what is in that pipe you're holding in your hand?!"

[TaoJones]

This thread is now restored (minus about a dozen off-topic and / or personal attack and / or duplicate posts. If you had a post among those excised, this will be your only notice - there were just too many to do individual PMs.

Please keep your posts on-topic without resorting to personal attacks on those who hold a different view.

Thank you for your understanding.

TaoJones

[surfingminniwinni]

Originally Posted by meyermm

Jessica Watson has already made millions from her trip this is not idle gossip. Book and documentary to come, those not living in Australia would not have seen the hype with TV stations fighting over the exclusive rights etc. She never owned the boat this was loaned to her, all the damage + improvements were provided free when she hit the freighter and the whole trip was carefully orchestrated. She received a lot of mileage by being young good looking girl rather than as some have suggested being at a disadvantage being a girl. There was a very well organised media savvy group behind the deal as I said this was all about MONEY

Now I get it! Its all Jessica's fault. Yes and that was a well orchestrated masterstroke hitting the freighter