California Girl Trying to Circle Earth in a Boat
This time of year, most teenage girls are preoccupied with texting, shopping and snagging a great date for the prom. Abby Sunderland, a 16-year-old from Thousand Oaks, CA, is two months into something quite different: a journey of high risk and solitude.
Sunderland is attempting a nonstop solo sailboat trip to circumnavigate the world. If successful, she will be the youngest person to accomplish the task. Better still, she is attempting to do this without ever stopping to take refuge on land.
The seasoned sailor – the second of seven siblings – has been around boats and water before she could walk. While she is well-trained and realistic about her chances, she admitted to being a little afraid, passing the emotion off as healthy, because it was based out of a respect for the sea and its power.
Sunderland has already been afloat for two months. She left Jan 23 from Marina Del Rey, CA. She crossed the equator in mid-February. She skirted by Chile at the time of the recent earthquake and was expected to round Cape Horn on the tip of South America the first week in April.
Cape Horn is a critical part of the trip. It is a location where weather fronts converge and stir up horrible gales, waves and ice hazards.
“It’s really amazing the weather down here,” Abby said in a blog. “The systems and fronts, ridges and highs are everywhere.”
After the Cape, she will turn northbound for the rest of the journey. The entire trip is expected to take about six months.
Sunderland’s boat is a 40-foot, high-performance sailboat named Wild Eyes. To put her parents’ minds at ease, the boat was specially designed for a sole captain, with extensive safety features. The family might be separated by distance, but members are not out of touch. Communication is maintained through use of the latest technology.
Sunderland stays in touch with the mainland with a satellite phone and satellite-based GPS tracking system. Wild Eyes draws power from solar panels on the back of the boat, wind generators and spare batteries. Â The sophisticated electronics come together in a navigation suite with a computer monitor, chart plotter and world maps, customized for trans-oceanic sailing.
The young skipper has amassed thousands of fans. Most of them log in daily to Sunderland’s website www.abbysunderland.com where she posts blogs.
Sunderland spends long periods of time staring at the open ocean with nothing notable to characterize her path. The GPS tracking system helps her stay true to course. It is very similar to a vehicle tracking system in a car or truck. The real-time GPS tracking system records a position update (with latitude and longitude) every few minutes. On the water, there obviously are no streets, so it is vital that the GPS tracking system is precise and reliable. A satellite modem then transmits the raw data to a secure server and the raw data is translated into an easy-to-use mapping format.
Fans are logging in daily and tracking how far the boat has traveled and what happened on that leg of the trip.
Besides the vehicle tracking system, Sunderland has another handy electronic tool: an iPod. When the sailor isn’t doing chores, repairs, calculating her next move or sleeping (sometimes in only 10- or 15-minute intervals), she plays music to ward off boredom.
Abby’s blog says this adventure has been her dream since she was 13 years old. Her older brother Zac did the trip last year.
If this sailing challenge is met, despite the odds, perhaps next year Sunderland will turn her focus to the prom.
Source: GrindTV
Tags: Boat, California Girl, Circle Earth, Circumnavigate, GPS Tracking, sailor, Sunderland, Thousand
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