Teenage round-the-world sailor Abby Sunderland found alive Sophie Tedmanson, Sydney June 11, 2010
Thank goodness .. just a bit different detail ..
Rescuers have made contact with Abby Sunderland, the Californian teenage sailor who went missing yesterday after her record attempt to circumnavigate the globe ran into a powerful storm in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
Laurence Sunderland, Abby’s father, said that rescuers on board a chartered Australian aircraft who were looking for the 16-year-old had made contact with her earlier today and that she was alive.
“She’s fine, the boat’s afloat and she’s on it,” Mr Sutherland told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “It’s huge, fantastic, exciting news.”
Australian authorities are leading the international rescue effort, which has been under way since yesterday when an emergency signal on board Abby’s yacht, Wild Eyes, was activated. Related Links
There had been no communication with Abby after the alarm was raised and it is believed that her yacht has been drifting without a keel in heaving 18m (60ft) swells.
The last entry on her blog, which she was updating via satellite, described the menacing ocean conditions of a southern hemisphere winter. In an entry called “A rough few days”, posted on Wednesday, she wrote: “I’ve been in some rough weather for a while ... The wind is beginning to pick up.”
A chartered Australian aircraft, carrying emergency volunteer air observers, as well as police and other rescuers, began searching for the boat earlier today, while Australian, US and French rescue authorities sent ships to her last known location, an area about 2,000 miles (3,220 km) southeast of Madagascar and 2,000 miles southwest of Australia. The boats are not expected to reach her location until Saturday.
Earlier today Mr Sunderland had asked people to pray for the safety of his daughter, saying that her fate was “in God’s hands” and that it would take “something extraordinary” for her to survive.
Mr Sunderland had spoken to the teenager five or six times by phone yesterday to help to fix a problem with the boat’s engine, but, shortly after the last call dropped, the family learnt that an emergency device had gone off.
He said that judging by the yacht’s drift factor, he thought the keel may have been knocked off the boat.
Mr Sunderland said that Abby had a dry suit and a survival suit, as well as a life raft and an escape hatch on the yacht — “everything that you would need in this hostile environment to survive”.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that the rescuers on board the flight, which left Perth at first light this morning, had hoped to establish radio contact with Abby once she was sighted by air.
She described conditions in the area as “extremely poor”.
“Once the plane gets to the position, we’re hoping they will be able to sight Abby’s yacht and make contact with her over the radio,” Carly Lusk told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“We’re experiencing in that area 90km/h (56mph) winds so it’s quite dangerous,” she added.
On Monday Abby reached the halfway point of her bid to sail solo around the world.
She was hoping to beat Jessica Watson, also 16, from Australia, who last month became the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the world after completing a 23,000 mile (37,000km) circumnavigation in 210 days.
Jessica’s mother, Julie, said that her daughter and Abby had formed a friendship during Jessica’s trip and that they were all praying for Abby and her family.
“[Jessica and Abby] have been communicating and we’ve been communicating with the family as well,” Mrs Watson told the ABC.
“We heard from them this morning ... they’re just waiting for information. Our hearts go out to them.”
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