Sixteen year-old Abby Sunderland quit her attempt to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world nonstop, like 1 day after a 17 year old became the youngest to do it. She said the reason was that her main autopilot on the sailboat was broken and she had to get it fixed.
In case you didn't know, a main autopilot sails the ship by GPS, so you could sleep and do other things like taking classes and doing homework, or just stuff around the boat that don't include sailing. It's like she was riding a boat, rather than sailing. Isn't that cheating?
It's sad, because it takes about a year to sail and she'll be too old to have another chance at a nonstop record, but I wonder if she could get another boat, and just swap in the middle of the water without stopping.
No, she's on a boat.
@wolf1991 The record isn't to be on a boat going around the world, it's to sail it all by herself. But she wasn't really sailing it, the machine was doing that for her.
@Kyouzou Isn't sailing all about keeping a set course? If her computer is out, and she's unable to set her course, then she must not know how to sail. That's just my impression from the story they wrote.
@Kaboni, I think you won that one. Cape Town, South Africa has a serious pirate problem. They'd been planning the solution since, at least, 2006.
Isn't sailing all about keeping a set course? If her computer is out, and she's unable to set her course, then she must not know how to sail. That's just my impression from the story they wrote.
Maybe before the advent of such technology. Do you think that anyone that goes -that- far actually just goes "Hey, I'mma gonna use the star and these crap maps to guide me and hope I do not die."?
It's all autopilot, GPS maps and whatnot. Whether 16 or 66. No one stays at the helm all day and night, adjusting sails or spinning wheels.
to be able to say she has sailed across the world.
That's my question. Can she really say that when the boat sails all by itself? Devoidless said yes because there's no way you could do it without that stuff. But Joshua Slockum stayed at the helm without computers GPS or autopilots.
So it just proves if you know how to sail then you could go around the world alone without cheating, cause I think she cheated.
But Joshua Slockum stayed at the helm without computers GPS or autopilots.
Key part of that is in 1899. That was when if you were going to sail out on the open seas, you more or less started to learn all the ins and outs from childhood. It was not just a whimsical fancy back then. It was a way of life, do or die. I bet that if you asked him if he had the option to have some 'magical' device to make it easier for him to do it that he would pounce on the chance to have it.
