Second teen girl to circumnavigate solo

8:22 PM Wed 19 Aug 2009 GMT

'Abby Sunderland, photo by her father, Laurence Sunderland' .

Now there is a second teenaged girl announcing that she will sail around the world alone. While Australia's Jessica Watson is preparing for her sail on an all pink boat renamed Pink Lady, Zac Sunderland's younger sister Abby has announced that she will follow in her brother's footsteps.

Zac is currently the youngest to sail around the world, a record which is just about to be broken by British teenager Mike Perham in around 9 days from now.

Abby Sunderland, who will turn 16 in October, is hoping to embark on a nonstop, unassisted voyage in November aboard a 40-foot cruising vessel, and complete the trip in about six months. First, however, she will have to land a sponsor to help cover the $350,000 cost of the odyssey.

'I've been wanting to do this since I was 13, and when I was 13 there was nobody doing this,' she told the Associated Press. 'So it's kind of like right as I'm about to finally get to do it, all these other kids start popping up doing it.'

Zac's journey lasted 13 months and included many stops. England's Mike Perham, who is a few months younger than Zac, is close to completing his around-the-world adventure and if he's successful he will become the youngest to solo-circumnavigate the planet. Australia's Jessica Watson, 16, is preparing for a September launch for what she hopes will be a nonstop, unassisted journey, aboard a 34-foot boat named Pink Lady.

Laurence and Marianne Sunderland were strongly criticized by some for allowing their oldest son to go off on such a potentially dangerous adventure.

But Zac proved to be a capable sailor and Abby is similarly accomplished and says she is confident she can make it safely around the world.

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Letter from Reader:
Just as I predicted to my friends, we have now two teenagers who want to 'one-up' the already very young round-the-world sailors and 'break the records set by their inspirational predecessors'.
How about we make a point to ignore those attempts to avoid toddlers to be pushed off the dock with great fanfare by their parents and disappear forever in a storm, because nobody told them, nor their parents, that for some feats too young is just too young? from Daniel Forster

by Pete Thomas, LATimes/Sail-World Cruising

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Second teen girl to circumnavigate solo

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