Abby Sunderland Lost (and found) in Me-Space

Update: Sailor Abby Sunderland found safe in Indian Ocean

(Reuters) – A 16-year-old California girl trying to sail solo around the world is safe and well after a massive search and rescue was launched in the Indian Ocean when she triggered distress signals, her parents and Australian authorities said Friday.

Sixteen year-old solo circumnavigator, Abby Sunderland has not been heard from for almost 1 day now, except for the distress signals. Abby is approximately 500 miles north of the Antarctic Islands on her bid to become the youngest to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat, solo.

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Sixteen year old Abby Sunderland is alone somewhere in the Southern Ocean. Her last reported position was midway between Australia and South Africa. Chances are good that she is alive as I write this, but she living at this moment, in the most remote and inhospitable environment imaginable. Terra firma or even ice, provide a purchase point for human habitation, but at sea there is only the hull of one’s tiny boat or still tinier, a rubber liferaft, or nothing but the cold dark sea.

No matter where you go or how long your passage, solo sailing is the riskiest of business. It is hard to wrap you mind around the level of exposure you experience in the open ocean. In my experience crossing oceans, the illusion of invulnerability produced by technology — your boat, GPS, radio and Sat-Phone — is a thin veneer that is quickly peeled away by the relentless and impersonal sea. To willingly set sail alone is an act that should be reserved for the most desperate, most mad, or most self-aggrandizing of egotists. Was young Abby any of these?

As a lifelong sailor who has crossed a few oceans, I am not impressed by those who tempt the fates to get their names in the record books. These are the Me-Space people who devote their fortunes and risk their lives to get others to “look at me”. They are not worthy of the title of heros. Heros are those who undertake risk selflessly in the interest of others. Heros live in We-Space not Me-Space. The selfish acts of Me-Space people are intended to make them celebrities. Their aim is nothing more than personal fame and fortune. Their acts of self-aggrandizement are not noble endeavors of the human spirit. These are not people to be emulated as role models.

So what is little Abby doing out there? At 16 years young, I doubt that she is either desperate, mad, or egotistical, but someone in a position to influence her young mind was.

From ABC News Story, “Abby Sunderland Feared Lost at Sea“

Laurence Sunderland (Abby’s father) schooled Abby in seamanship, testing her, he said, with tougher and tougher solo scenarios through her teens.

And,

“She set out to achieve — a goal as being the youngest person to solo circumnavigate the world nonstop,” said Laurence Sunderland.

When I see this sort of thing and how the media swarms all over it and audiences eat it up, I feel raw anger well up in me. Dammit! We need to start teaching our children to value We-Space over Me-Space. There is enough fame a fortune to go around for those who choose to devote their lives to doing good works — to making a better world. And if fate throws you a curve ball and you are forced to cross an ocean alone, then I will be first in line to shake your hand.

As for innocent Abby, I am thinking about her and hoping with all my heart that she comes through this without harm.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Boating Disasters, Lead Story, Sail-the-Channel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.