Thursday, June 10, 2010

16 Year Old Abby Sunderland is Missing

Why in the world would anybody let a 16 year old girl attempt to sail around the world single-handed?

What am I missing here?

Sixteen year old Abby Sunderland is now sending out emergency beacons and has lost contact with her family.  Now she is lost somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

The story is here.

Rescue efforts are underway.

Abby was keeping a blog of her journey, which you can read here.

I hope she's found safe and sound and I wish someone would explain to me why this is okay from a parenting standpoint.

Update:  She's been found and is fine, thank goodness.  I still think it's a bonehead idea, however.  Glad she's okay!

2 comments:

Jim said...

I'm with you, Pat. It seems very irresponsible to allow this, much less encourage it.

yukio ngaby said...

I'm kinda curious as to exactly when we as a society decided people have to be of drinking age to be able to excel at something.

Should these parents have allowed this specific girl to try this? I don't know. This Abby Sunderland seems to have done pretty well, and if a rogue wave did capsize her, there's not really all that much anyone could have done about it. So she seems to have done okay.

A sixteen-year-old is not a little child. Clearly, Sunderland is very capable to get as far as she did.

Should parents not teach their children self-reliance? Yes, this an extreme example, but if she's capable then why not?