Posted by John Lambert on August 30, 2009 at 23:06:45 user John.
In Reply to: Re: The boundaries of parental responsibility posted by Robert Hill on August 29, 2009 at 21:43:11:
I doubt very much if a girl that age could circumnavigate the world alone and survive. Her vessel is only 26 feet. My sloop was 27 feet and sailing only a few miles from my home town those waves looked pretty big and dangerous. Quite apart from any other consideration, the physical strength needed to reef a sail or sheet in a jib when the weather gets heavy exceeds the strength of any 13 year old I've ever seen. She must know what she will have to put up with. Sitting all alone, wet, scared and shivering in a cockpit awash with the remains of last night's skimpy supper sloshing around your feet is something she'll have to consider. The waves rolling past your flimsy craft are so much bigger than you. The wind never lets up to allow you to snatch a few minutes sleep. The sea doesn't care. It isn't aware of you, it just rolls on around the world as it has done for thousands of years and will continue to do so after we're all gone. Sailing across the North Sea is nothing compared with those mountainous waves in the Pacific and the South Atlantic. Homework? Forget it. Any time she has free will be spent in trying to tidy up, getting something to eat that will stay down and in sleep, blessed sleep. If she's in the southern ocean in a high pressure area, she'll be sweltering in whatever shade she can find, just too fagged to bother about homework. Things break: shrouds, sails, self-steering gear, bilge pumps, the radio and so on. Will she know how to mend them? If the radio goes, how will she call for help? Every year, older experienced sailors are lost at sea. There will be storms. That's inevitable. It's incredible that a 16-year-old boy could do it. A 13-year-old girl? If she makes it - what glory and what pride for her parents. But if she doesn't - why did I ever let her go? If bravado triumphs over common sence, I'll be there in the cockpit with her every mile of the way. She'll need all the prayers, hope and encouragement we can give her.