Abby Sunderland has been found. A rescue boat is en route to rescue the sixteen year old traveler, who had wanted to become the youngest sailor ever to circumnavigate the globe.
I think this will be a brief diary (though usually, when I say that, it turns out to be an 800-page novel). The point many will want to make about this event is that it is folly to allow a person of this age to try something of this nature. It could have ended in tragedy.
I honor this person for the attempt, and I honor her parents for allowing it. As long as it is undertaken with careful preparation, I say it's not only acceptable, it's necessary. People like Abby Sunderland and her parents are necessary.
When Katie Spotz, who had previously become the first person ever to swim the entire length of the Allegheny River, set out to become the youngest person ever to row solo across the Atlantic, and devoted the journey to raising awareness for water scarcity, a Kossack objected: "yes, but I think it's only the sort of thing that sounds great until something bad happens, and she needs to be rescued. Then it's foolhardy."
I disagree completely. I was reminded of what was said about the pilot of Dove. Robin Lee Graham set out, as a teenager, to become the youngest person ever to make the sailing trip solo, and did. Zac Sunderland, Abby Sunderland's brother, has in fact cited Mr. Graham as an inspiration; Abby's brother Zac actually completed his voyage, also becoming one of the youngest people ever to to so.
Robin Lee Graham, as he recounted in his book, Dove, was criticized and shamed in letters to the editors of the Hawaiian newspapers, when he tried to sail from one island to another (this first time, without his parents' permission or knowledge) in a jury-rigged sailboat, and had to be rescued. "The expense!" "The man-hours!" "Irresponsible!", harrumphed the usual stern brigade of Highly Responsible, annoyed jowlsmen.
But one letter was different. That writer praised him for taking a risk. "It is obvious that the writers of these letters never walked a high fence, or swam a forbidden hole," the letter said. Mr. Graham kept that letter, and sailed around the world.
Safety First
We walk a fine line with regard to safety, and I know that this is a sensitive issue for parents (and I'm not one). I also know that there's a limit; yes, there are twelve or thirteen year olds who would read about Robin Lee Graham's adventure, and would want to go before they were ready (I know because I was once one of them). At a certain point, one has to draw a line, which will always seem arbitrary, and say "OK, sixteen year olds have done it; but fifteen year olds should not." I understand. A pre-teen? Ridiculous. Yes, that shouldn't be allowed.
But for many people, sixteen would still be well below that line. "She's had to be rescued! Think of the cost! And what if she had lost her life?"
It's true that any parent, or any public, that watched a sixteen year old try to sail around the world, only to lose her life, would never get over it. Losing a life is a very real possibility, and there are those who would say that letting someone that young do this is always unconscionable.
Well, we set arbitrary limits on things. We have to. We don't want children drinking alcohol, so we set an age limit. It makes sense. We don't want children driving, so we set an age limit. It's 21 for the one, and 16 for the other. Why 21? Why 16? Who knows? But there it is.
So it's 16 for driving, when it's a two-ton rocket you're putting on the road, going 65 miles per hour (if anyone heeds the speed limit, which of course they don't), in the middle of several thousand other two-ton rockets, going the same speed or faster, and with half of them paying more attention to the stupid text messaging they're doing than the road.
You're telling me that's more dangerous than going five miles an hour in a boat, completely alone on the ocean? The age limit should be higher for that?
Well--maybe. Abby Sunderland reported fifty-foot waves. You don't get that on the freeway.
There are life-threatening situations that come up in ocean sailing, it's true. Also, sailing solo poses certain dangers as well, in that one can't keep on the lookout at all times, even though there are so few other "vehicles on the road."
Yet people have done it. Several teenagers have made the solo trip around the world. And the fact is that ANY sailor could be confronted with heavy seas that would necessitate a rescue. To argue that Abby Sunderland was foolhardy, just because 50-foot waves made a rescue necessary, is to argue that ALL pleasure sailors on the ocean have made their own potential rescues necessary, and were just as foolhardy. A dear friend of mine had her boat capsize on the open ocean, and had to wait five days, clinging to the side, before being rescued. She was in her 30s then. Nobody got in her face about it with moral indignation, and nobody should have. Nor should they with Abby Sunderland, or her parents.
Abby's parents have assured the world, in the article above, that she was well-prepared for this adventure. I believe they're right. (If they're not good judges of this, then I wonder how on earth her brother Zac could have made the trip himself, before she began the attempt? Her parents, I would bet, are good judges on the matter. Enough alarm bells would have rung for Zac, on his voyage, otherwise. I have no doubt that he faced life-threatening dangers as well, and proved able to handle them.) If someone is well-prepared, and isn't being foolhardy, then we shouldn't criticize them as if they were, unless all ocean pleasure sailing is intrinsically foolhardy.
How do we judge whether someone is well-prepared? Well, WE don't. THEY do. The individual and her parents did. Is that as it should be? Well... I'm sure that, eventually, someone who really IS foolhardy will make the attempt, and that--God forbid, but it does seem inevitable--one day, one such voyage will end in tragedy, and people will say that Something Must be Done. If this ended in restrictions, such as having an authority need to license any minors before they could sail solo, that would be acceptable to me. But to prohibit it entirely unless one was an adult? That, I would find a shame.
We Americans are known around the world as a litigious society, who constantly scramble to sue the world out of allowing any personal risk whatsoever. But honor the person who risks. We shouldn't need Captain Kirk to tell us that.
And for God's sake, if you feel like lecturing this girl, then before you do: take some few little risks yourself. We've had enough safety, already. We need more risk now.