Teen Sailor Back on the Seas After Setbacks
Teen who hopes to break solo sailing record is back on the seas after repairs.
CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico, Feb. 10, 2010— -- On a partly cloudy day off the coast of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, 16-year-old Abby Sunderland re-launched her historic attempt to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and unassisted.
Dozens of Mexican yacht hands and tourists from the United States and Europe watched Saturday as Sunderland slid from her repair dock into the bay. Surrounded by boats filled with well-wishers, she hoisted her mainsail around the first bend of rock.
There were calm winds at first, but then a 15-knot gust of wind filled her sails and the vessel keeled violently.
Back in the boat for the first time in four days, she had no ballast, the placement of her lines was different, and she had too much sail for the force of the wind.
But for a 16-year-old girl with a world record on her mind and the invincibility of youth, Sunderland simply dropped the mainsail a bit and headed into the wind, controlling both her sails and the speed of the boat, slowing down the world around her and taking command.
"It was at that point I began thinking of her as Captain Abby," said Scott Laurie, a marine engineer on Sunderland's team, who had been somewhat skeptical of both the boat's capabilities and those of the teenaged sailor who was commanding it.
Saturday's bid was the American teenager's second try. She'd been out to sea from Marina Del Rey, Calif. for 10 days when her electrical system failed to generate enough energy to power critical navigation and communication equipment, forcing her to port for repairs.
"At first I was really upset about it," Sunderland told ABC News from the repair dock at the Cabo San Lucas Marina. "I didn't want to stop. I was just getting into a routine out there. But my wind generator wasn't putting out enough, and at night the solar panels were useless. So I used my engines and it was quickly becoming evident that I would run out of fuel because I was running my engines so much."
A team of engineers, along with her father Laurence, flew to Mexico to meet her and fix the power generation issue. They installed new, bigger batteries, adjusted the belts on the alternator, re-routed the power consumption for some critical navigational instruments and loaded on more fuel.
"Right now, I think my biggest challenge is getting down to Cape Horn in time," Sunderland said."It's a little worrying that if the wind dies down I might have to stop and wait until next season."
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