FYI: Teen sailor found alive ‎

[Durion]

Unless we see the follow up where she or her parents pay for the rescue op, she is by far the biggest leach out there. Get some perspective here.

YOU need to get the perspective. See my answer to your last post. You are using the worst line of thinking someone can have in this situation. Had it been a hoax to get media attention or such, then yes. In an actual emergencey, no.

[Durion]

And you know for a fact that they are not trying to do anything with their lives?

Must be nice to be that delusional. The world must seem to be exactly the way you want every time you look.

Have not seen any mention of compensation for that French ship yet.

There never is. No ships HAVE to divert for a rescue. However, sailors are a tight community and do whatever they can to help each other out. 3 ships diverted to help the Titanic when she sank. Do you think there was any compesation there? No. Nobody asks for it. They divert of their own free will, with the knowledge that if they were the ones needing the help, someone would do the same for them.

[TechNoFear]

There never is. No ships HAVE to divert for a rescue. However, sailors are a tight community and do whatever they can to help each other out. 3 ships diverted to help the Titanic when she sank. Do you think there was any compesation there? No. Nobody asks for it. They divert of their own free will, with the knowledge that if they were the ones needing the help, someone would do the same for them.

Why sail across the 'Roaring 40s' in Winter?
Experienced sailors like Tony Bullimore learnt the hard way not to try it.

IME (>35 years sailing the WA coast) the boat did not hit the limit, she was not capable of maintaining control of the boat in the conditions (causing the boat to be damaged).

Even though she was outside Australia's area of responsibility, every Western Australian tax-payer (of which I am one) personally spent approx Au$20 on her rescue, or over Au$4 mill.

Why did she not have insurance to cover such an eventuallity?
Why did the US not charter a 747 to have one of it's citizens rescued?

[lazylaz]

Even though she was outside Australia's area of responsibility, every Western Australian tax-payer (of which I am one) personally spent approx Au$20 on her rescue, or over Au$4 mill.

Apparently the Federal Government has paid for the search so its every Australian, including me on the east coast, has paid to help her out. And I don't mind.

[Kominalito]

holy *bleep*..time to clean up the argument before someone brings up hitler. oh wait...

the argument isnt whether or not a perilous sailing mission is worth anything. its whether or not a 16 should be allowed to do it. ffs man, if a 40 year old does it and dies, cool. they were 40. if a 16 year old dies, its a huge loss of life. its awesome to say "ya, dude, i died trying to sail in one of the most dangerous oceans on teh planet. wheres my wings". but what about all the other experiences that are lost??? like learning to drive a freaking car first, or going to a prom...

there is a LOT of good that can come fom a personal journey like this. my argument is that 16 is way, way too young. if she is such a rad sailor now, just imagine how great she would be with 4 more years.

and to the analogy about a person's son being a good swimmer and letting him take a deep sea dive, thats a bad comparison. if your kid is a great swimmer and you want a similar comparison, let him swim from mexico to cuba. thats the current open sea swim record.

imagine letting a child of 16 swim that trip. then imagine that for THIS analogy, there would be a boat following him all the way. now put the perspective of THIS case where there was less of a safety net. not so awesome parenting, imo. to me its the equivalent of the ancient practice sending your kid into a bearcave armed with a knife like a caveman's coming of age rites. its cool if you are a caveman, and you need these skills to live, but arent we socially evolved past this???

[Zippo]

its cool if you are a caveman, and you need these skills to live, but arent we socially evolved past this???

Thank god no, we aren't past this. If we as the human race get past that point of daring to achieve the previously unachievable then we as a people are doomed to mediocrity and ultimately our own death. That very moment that we stop saying "I am going to do what they say can't be done" we might as well pack our bags as the dominant species on this planet.

Boy just imagine where we would be if Christopher Columbus said "To hell with trying to sail around the Earth, it's flat". Man that crazy old Chris, what was he thinking trying to do something silly like that for.

[Thrudh]

Boy just imagine where we would be if Christopher Columbus said "To hell with trying to sail around the Earth, it's flat". Man that crazy old Chris, what was he thinking trying to do something silly like that for.

Dude, it's nothing against the innovative spirit... It's doing it at 16 I have a problem with... I'm not saying the parents were abusive or terrible people... I'm saying it probably would have been wiser to wait until she was a little older, and had some more experience before setting out on such a trip...

It was way too much about beating "the record" (by the way, I think Guiness or whoever keeps track of those records have removed that record from the record books... They don't want to encourage the next one to try it at 15)...

If this girl tried this after high school at 18, or after college at 22.... I would have been rooting for her all the way... At 16, I was still rooting for her, but I had to glance a few times suspiciously at her parents...

Again, there's a WIDE area between over-protective, and sail around the world solo for 6 months... One can be against both. I'm sure she was ALREADY an awesome mature responsible human being thanks to her family and all the time she spent mastering sailing...

There just was no reason for her to try a solo trip at 16...

[Borror0]

It's doing it at 16 I have a problem with...

She was most likely aware of the risk involved and decided to do it anyway. It's not like she was raised in Alberta and decided to sail one day. People do risky things in spite of the risk, for personal reasons such as entertainment or pushing one's limits. Unless you feel she was too ignorant to to know that the risks were, i don't see your argument.

There just was no reason for her to try a solo trip at 16...

Yes. She wanted to beat a record. That is a reason.

[Xionanx]

I hate to bring up psychology, but it is the generally held belief that human beings lack the ability to properly understand "risk" until around the age of 24. It has nothing to do with life experience, its just the brain and body chemistry just hasn't completely developed the ability. As such, a PARENT should understand that limitation and impose restrictions on the activities on their children to prevent them from placing themselves in situations they can not control.

I believe that what took place here WAS proper parenting. Her parents knew her capabilities, and she demonstrated those abilities in the fact that she is still alive. Lots of people have attempted the solo sail, and LOTS of people have failed for one reason or another. Age was not a factor in those? So while she herself may not have fully understood the risks involved, I believe her parents probably did, and allowed her to make the attempt because they knew she COULD do it.

Choosing to do nothing because something might go wrong is not living, its being cowardly.

If you let something that may happen stop you, then you might as well not get out of bed because at any given moment "something" bad may happen that you had no way of predicting. Hell, don't even go to sleep because who knows, a scorpion may have crawled into your bed and sting you while your asleep.

Perhaps I should try to put my statements in a little more perspective:

I grew up in a small town on the border of a nuclear power plant. My house bordered my grandfathers farm, which was 106 acres of forest and fields. His farm bordered several others, which also bordered land owned by a paper mill for use as tree harvesting land, that land bordered the nuclear power plant. All total the distance from my house to the plant was roughly 15 miles of forest as the crow flies. When I was a child of 10 I would WALK in those woods, inhabited by wild dogs, wolves, foxes, badgers, alligators, snakes of all kinds, and at one point a panther to a creek on the border of the power plant. So why wasn't a search and rescue team brought in for the 10 yr old boy lost in the woods? Because I wasn't lost and my parents KNEW it! I was even so bold to CAMP on the power plants land when I was in my teens, which resulted in their security team seeing my campfire and the confiscation of all my camping equipment and some angry apologies for "trespassing" and feeling lucking I didn't have to pay the $100k fine. Anyway..

Nowadays a kid gets "lost" in a mall of less then 5 acres and its a damned national emergency!

[GeneralDiomedes]

Well, she nearly made the Darwin awards.

[7-day_Trial_Monkey]

I'm going to heavily wave the BS flag on this one. You are absolutely, positively in the wrong state of mind here. When its a bogus "search" like that of the "balloon boy" then yes, that should be the case.

As a firefighter and former US Coast Guardsman, I tell you you are wrong. If people are responsible for those "costs" then you have people that delay to call emergency services if needed. Anyone that is an emergency responder will tell you that every second counts. Having someone second guess whether they need to call whatever service could be fatal.

The point isn't about second guessing calling or not. It's about second guessing whether to embark on the voyage or not.

[Gkar]

She was most likely aware of the risk involved and decided to do it anyway. It's not like she was raised in Alberta and decided to sail one day. People do risky things in spite of the risk, for personal reasons such as entertainment or pushing one's limits. Unless you feel she was too ignorant to to know that the risks were, i don't see your argument.

Yes. She wanted to beat a record. That is a reason.

16 year olds want lots of things...Smart parents so no to many of those things that are not appropriate. 16 year olds are not able to correctly judge risk and potential for consequence - their brains aren't wired for it yet.

[Borror0]

Meh. Nvm.