Solo sailor, 16, missing as beacons activated

[Absolution 7]

"A 16-year-old Southern California girl attempting a solo sail around the world was feared in trouble in the frigid, heaving southern Indian Ocean, after her emergency beacons began signaling and communication was lost."

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/3 ... -activated

[Guest]

Stand by for further rules. regulations, compulsory insurance................................................

[Guest]

In fact I'm going to have a little rant here. A teenage kid in the worst part of the Southern Ocean in June??????? This was almost inevitable.

 

BTW Jessica damn near died the first night out when she hit a ship, she was lucky then got around and is now a heroine (she's not a hero - that is a masculine version of the noun). But it could oh so easily have been death for her.

 

It's like running across the road blindfold - if ten people do it, the first might survive , but ten won't.

 

Why does this piss me off? Selfish reasons -Because I want to be free to go sail when and where I want and stunts like these are going to kill that opportunity for me.

 

Still maybe there's a positive here - if she drowns maybe it will slow down this rush of children trying to gain the record.

 

 

There I said it - flame away.

[Guest]

Bugger, cant disagree

[wheels 543]

if ten people do it, the first might survive , but ten won't.

Or 10 make it and 1 doesn't.

It most likely would still bring in the wave of regulations and rule changes. Maybe or maybe not in the Sailing scene, but what about in the responsibility of safe parenting.

What makes these challenges what they are...A Risk...is the fact that there is....A Risk. Sir Ed was a Hero because everyone before him died. Not because he was the first to even attempt to reach the summit. Otherwise the first to ever reach the Summit of one tree hill would have also been called a Hero. So for a Risk to be awarded to a challenge, then someone must have died in some attempt upon that challenge. Otherwise we would start awarding prizes for the first 16yr old to go to a new corner dairy and the record would be broken each time someone younger did the same.

So where the line needs to be drawn, if a line even needs to be drawn, is, at what age does society say, yes you are old enough to take a risk that you will/may not survive this adventure. At what age is the Parent able to divorce themselves from the responsilbility of safe care of their children. One could say that we place our very young in a "risk situation" allowing them to walk to school on their own. So should it be that the Parent should be also be prosecuted if their child was abducted from the street??

Just some thoughts.

[markm 30]

Can't have your cake and eat it too Squid, your the advocate for no restrictions, each free to do as they please.

 

And like it or not, you can't abolish the treaty covering search and rescue obligations, nor should it be abolished.

[Grinna 2]

"We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard." - John F Kennnedy.

 

I don't have a problem with teenagers setting off to sail solo around the world as long as they and everyone else understand that its not the safest endeavour in the world. With proper preparation and the right equipment and attitudes it can be done relatively safely, however, it must be remembered that you're taking on the ocean. Some very experienced and well prepared people have come to grief on the ocean. There is an element of luck involved.

 

As you so eloquently put it Squid, of 10 that set out we should not expect to be welcoming all 10 back to safe harbour. But as long as they take on the challenge with the knowledge that they may not return, then I'm OK with that.

 

What we don't need is a bunch of hand-wringing, pansy ass, safety nazis who go and change the regulations for everybody just because Johnny Pimplebum wiped himself out in the Sthn Ocean during his attempt to be the youngest blindfolded transgender conjoined twin to sail solo around the world in a plantpot.

[Guest Rocket]

At 16 you simply don't have the skills or probably the inner strength to survive when it goes wrong. I wish I knew what Iknow now at 20 when we were starting out Ocean racing - but you simply don't have the miles under your belt therefore you don't have the knowledge.

 

Any celebration of the youngest out sailing offshore alone is dumb and encourages this sort of thing - hope she is alright.

[shanson 0]

"We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard." - John F Kennnedy.

 

I don't have a problem with teenagers setting off to sail solo around the world as long as they and everyone else understand that its not the safest endeavour in the world. With proper preparation and the right equipment and attitudes it can be done relatively safely, however, it must be remembered that you're taking on the ocean. Some very experienced and well prepared people have come to grief on the ocean. There is an element of luck involved.

 

As you so eloquently put it Squid, of 10 that set out we should not expect to be welcoming all 10 back to safe harbour. But as long as they take on the challenge with the knowledge that they may not return, then I'm OK with that.

 

What we don't need is a bunch of hand-wringing, pansy ass, safety nazis who go and change the regulations for everybody just because Johnny Pimplebum wiped himself out in the Sthn Ocean during his attempt to be the youngest blindfolded transgender conjoined twin to sail solo around the world in a plantpot.

 

Grinna

 

You win at the internets!!!11!one!

(sorry the geek in me got out for a second!)

 

This is my vote for post of the year!

 

SHANE

[Guest Dry Reach]

Totally Agree Rocket. But these days sailing across the world is very safe - what with GPS and Epirbs for africa, and Comm's systems that keep you in touch 24/7.... and your never far from some boat or ship that can locate you to the nearest metre.

 

Its more dangerous riding your bike down town!

 

Its a bit like climbing EVEREST. They have the "track" roped and ladder'd off and the track is so well formed that my mother could do it. Crikey it's a bit like Queens Street on Boobs on Bike day up there! and you are never far from a few zillion 1/2 full dicarded oxygen cannisters.

 

A sherpa did it in one day (from Base camp to top and back)

 

But these over indulged teenagers are a "bit over the top"

 

Take the technolgy away from them and see if they will do it in a Timber (carvel) H28! then we see how good/ brave/ keen they are.

 

The oceans are safer than highways!... in fact they are like highways!

[Grinna 2]

DR, while I agree that technology has made it easier than ever to sail the oceans, I disagree that its completely without risk.

 

There's a whole lot of nothing out there and even if you're in communication with others, out there its all up to you. You are at the mercy of the ocean and the weather and you need to be able to do the right things at the right times. You will also need a dollop of good fortune.

 

There is still an element of risk inherent in doing a circumnavigation in a yacht .... and sailing solo raises the stakes considerably.

[Guest Dry Reach]

DR, while I agree that technology has made it easier than ever to sail the oceans, I disagree that its completely without risk.

 

There's a whole lot of nothing out there and even if you're in communication with others, out there its all up to you. You are at the mercy of the ocean and the weather and you need to be able to do the right things at the right times. You will also need a dollop of good fortune.

 

There is still an element of risk inherent in doing a circumnavigation in a yacht .... and sailing solo raises the stakes considerably.

 

 

True, but the risk is less than the sailors of the past had to endure. That why i say these latest events do not compare and are more a measure of technology than skill and effort.

 

Comparing Jessica Watson to such greats as Joshua Slocum, Chay Blyth, Clair Francis...

 

the full list here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-handed_sailing

 

and the list of famous people here...

 

(this is an amazing list of people i never knew about)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sailors

 

 

And this is a list of all the solo sailors!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:S ... ed_sailors

[Guest]

 

and the list of famous people here...

 

(this is an amazing list of people i never knew about)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sailors

 

 

I appear to missing from the list

[Guest]

The Aussies are sending a plane out.

[Guest Dry Reach]

 

and the list of famous people here...

 

(this is an amazing list of people i never knew about)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sailors

 

 

I appear to missing from the list

 

 

Amazing that ther is a record for "the first Kiwi" to sail solo around the world" still available.

 

although i think Clair Francis was "part" kiwi?

[Guest]

A Kiwi was first woman to go round solo - she was married to Rob James?

[Guest]

It's all OK, I just read on another forum her mother's pregnant - they'll get another shot at the record.

[Grinna 2]

The Aussies are sending a plane out

 

To look for Laurence Sunderland or to look for 3021 (who appears to be missing from the list of famous sailors)???

[Guest Dry Reach]

A Kiwi was first woman to go round solo - she was married to Rob James?

Clair Francis?

[Guest Dry Reach]

The Aussies are sending a plane out

 

To look for Laurence Sunderland or to look for 3021 (who appears to be missing from the list of famous sailors)???

 

 

No they are looking for all the kiwi's doing it!

 

unless of course 3021 is the famous.....