Round-The-World Sailor, 16, Missing

Robbo

Robbo

Robbo

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I've noticed lately there has been a lot of controversy surrounding children and younger people sailing around the world alone.

In this instance it demonstrates the very real danger posed by the sea, might make some of the people sending their children around think twice in future.

I thought some of you on here might find it interesting, there was a fairly big thread about something like this a while ago :p

Still, I hope she is found ok.

Sky News said:
A 16-year-old girl attempting to sail around the world alone has gone missing in rough seas after firing distress signals.

Abby Sunderland was last heard from at about 6am on Thursday (1300 GMT) when she broke off a satellite phone call with a member of her support team.

She had recently blogged that the Indian Ocean seas were "still huge" and her boat Wild Eyes was "rolling around like crazy".

She had also posted a photograph she had taken from her boat ominously titled: "The Calm Before The Storm".
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Link
 
I heard on the news that she has activated her Emergency Beacon. I am assuming they meant EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon), which she would definitely have been carrying. Her EPIRB will be transmitting her position. But she's crossing an ocean - it's probably out of range of helicopters. They will need to send a ship and this takes time.

If she had time to activate her EPIRB I'm sure she had time to get in her liferaft. But it's not fun living in one of those things!
 
Christ, I cant even go out on a pedalo without worrying about getting back to shore let alone going into the middle of the ocean, its one barren and place that not many people experience.
 
one of the live podcasts i listen to had some info on this. apparently it was the self activated beacon which is a good sign, apparently a qantas jet will do a flyby on the beacon location to hopefully spot. will take approx 48hrs for a boat to reach her....ouch

hope she is safe
 
An emergency rescue operation is underway involving several ships, but it will take at least 40 hours to reach her, officials say.

The boat is believed to be 1,864 miles southeast of the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.
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I hope she is found safe and sound.
 
If she has capsized she will be dead by then unless she had a life raft deployed in seas like that she wouldnt have had chance.

But kudos to her effort, I know some girls that cant even drive a car let alone sail and fix a boat in the middle of the ocean.
 
cheets64 said:
Christ, I cant even go out on a pedalo without worrying about getting back to shore let alone going into the middle of the ocean, its one barren and place that not many people experience.
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Yep - I've been in a Force 8 offshore and it's not pleasant - but nothing close enough to bring down a boat like that into any difficulty. To capsize that boat you would need a beam on wave about 8m high. Force 8 would not be bringing that on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale So she probably didn't capsize.

She could have had an electrical failure and panicked and set it off - that seems likely in my view. Boat batteries never that reliable but then I'd be surprised if she only had one.

She may have had a fire of some sort

She could have hit a whale (this SO nearly happened to us in Australia and would have sunk the boat - they tend to rip the keel off)

One possible is that she got caught by a wave and fell overboard. She probably has some sort of EPIRB built into her oilskins or at least a device like this which could be linked to the distress systems http://www.nasamarine.com/proddetail.php?prod=Mobi

Will be very interested to see what happens
 
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Well if she dies and her family's liek 'oh noes poor little girl we loved her so much' I'll just think well, shouldn't have let her go sailing off round the world then, SHOULD YA?!
And if she's OK, I hope it still serves as a warning that it can be dangerous, and risks should be weighed up very carefully before letting young people go sailing off on their own. You could say well if she couldn't go sailing off round the world then her life wouldn't be worth living - but I still think waiting 5 more years to get more experienced and psychologically mature would be preferable to getting pwned by the sea at a young age when you can barely make you own decisions, and have yet to experience the rest of life. And if she says sailing round the world solo was the ONLY thing she liked doing, then I won't believe her.
 
Yup, god knows how you would get into a life raft in the seas she commented on, not sure on the temp of the Indian ocean but 40 hours is going to take its toll on the body.
 
cheets64 said:
If she has capsized she will be dead by then unless she had a life raft deployed in seas like that she wouldnt have had chance.

But kudos to her effort, I know some girls that cant even drive a car let alone sail and fix a boat in the middle of the ocean.
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I don't agree. Firstly I don't think she will have capsized - the seas the press are talking about are not rough enough. But even if she did then a capsized boat is a much nicer place to be than a liferaft!! You only ever get in your liferaft if you are sinking or on fire. Too many people made that mistake in the fastnet - capsized, got in liferaft, died.
 
[FnG]magnolia;16728427 said:
^ Do you mean that you can stay in the boat even when capsized? How does that work?
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Sometimes, if a boat capsizes and doesn't sink, air is trapped inside stopping it from going under.

EDIT;

An example for you.

786041.jpg
 
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Shes got some balls to attempt that, I'm terrified just paddling in the sea! I hope shes ok.
 
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