(Note for RSS feed subscribers: The blog’s feedburner has a 24-hour delay, so you may be receiving this post on Friday; please see more current posts and our Twitter stream @__ASA__ for up-to-the-minute information on Abby Sunderland)
Much of the media has picked up 16-year-old solo circumnavigator Abby Sunderland’s story since she activated emergency distress signals in the middle of the Indian Ocean this morning. Since her satellite phone connection failed about an hour prior, no one has access to much information about Abby’s condition. The internet is full of reports of Abby being “lost at sea.”
We are all scared for Abby because, it’s true, she is in severe distress right now. But offshore sailors can deduce some things about Abby’s condition. The good news is, it is premature and inaccurate at this time to declare her “missing” or “lost.”
Here are the facts: Abby’s equipment includes a dry suit, survival suit, fully-equipped ditch kit, and offshore life raft. Additionally, she has a small personal locator beacon (PLB), a heartier main ship’s EPIRB, and a water-activated EPIRB mounted in the cockpit of WildEyes.
The two distress signals that went off were her PLB and the main ship’s EPIRB, not the water-activated cockpit one (reference: her parents’ update on Abby’s blog). Both of those beacons are manually activated, and they give rescuers Abby’s exact GPS fix. This emphasizes two things: first, that Abby purposely activated both of the two distress signals, and second, that her boat is almost still certainly afloat. If and when the boat goes down, we’ll receive the cockpit EPIRB’s signal. And EVEN THEN, she’s well prepared to wait in her offshore life raft for rescue.
The calling of a distress signal is up to the discretion of the skipper, and may be given for numerous reasons. One is that Abby herself has suffered some kind of personal injury that renders her unable to continue navigating her own vessel. The other is that the vessel has been dealt damage that puts Abby in a life-threatening position.
Either way, we are talking about distress. I am not in any way trying to undermine the severity of what’s happening to Abby. But according to the facts it is most likely that Abby is still hunkered down aboard WildEyes–the safest place for her to wait for rescue; out of the cold water, inside of a hard hull with multiple watertight compartments.
I know less about the intricacies of search and rescue efforts; however, just because Abby’s satellite phone is out of range or quit working does not mean she can’t contact anyone in the area. She has VHF and longer-range HF/SSB communication capacity (with backups), and according to her family, rescuers are diverting ship traffic towards her and sending a plane at first light to attempt contact via radio.
There is good reason to be optimistic. Please spread the word that Abby is not missing, and there is a highly organized search and rescue effort on their way–she just needs to hang on and hope.
Invite others to follow our Twitter stream @__ASA__ to read the updated facts as we learn them.
Responses
Thanks for this informative post. I’ve had some close hand experience with sailing mishaps that did not turn out well, and hope this young lady makes it home safely.
Thank you for your lucid comments amid the turmoil. As far as we know, young Ms. Sunderland is far from ‘Lost at Sea’. At this point, we all need to trust the (rescue) systems, and simply pray for her safe return.
Thanks for the competent report for us non sailors 🙂
Recenbt news is her personal and her boat EPIRB are both putting out the same location, and are drifting at 1 km/hr. Looks like she is with the boat and hunkered down as you say.
Abby is safe, well, and on her boat–on tonight’s breaking news, 11:23 p.m. PST.
Word is she was spotted by the search plane, She is fine, Demasted tho, (I thought she was a lil hot roddy with the sails) I hope she was able to cut away the rigging, She is going to be picked up by a fishing vessel in about 24 hrs
Good morning, and good news!! The thought of her warm in her cabin is just wonderful.
I saw the pic, from the search aircraft it looks like she is dragging the rigging with sails astern, so she will be uncomfortable until she is picked up with the weather astern fortunately her vessel is top notch and can take the beating, to bad she wasn’t able to free the rigging and rig a small mast with the spinnaker pole or salvage the boom, that has to be a 500k sailboat and it is destine to be bottom fodder now. Thank God she is safe tho.