Pete Thomas Outdoors

Teen sailor Laura Dekker arrives safely into Australian waters

Dutch sailor Laura Dekker has safely negotiated the reef-strewn Torres Strait and arrived in Australian waters, but only after a tense period during which strong winds tore apart one of her sails.

"There were reefs everywhere but I could hardly see anything because it was getting dark," she wrote on her blog. "I adjusted my course so I would be sailing even closer to the wind. Would this work? Guppy sliced right through the waves under Genoa and reefed mainsail.

"The Genoa had a hard time of it with its taped tears and holes -- would it last through the night? Rrrrrrippp! Without having to look I had my answer.... I rolled in the Genoa and rolled out the storm-jib and so I kept sailing very close to the wind as we went between all the reefs."

The passage comes a full year after she departed from Gibraltar as a 14-year-old on Aug. 21, 2010, on a controversial quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone.

Dekker, now 15, will make port for an extended stay in Darwin, Australia, complete repairs and re-provision before attempting to cross the Indian Ocean -- her final major crossing.

The Indian Ocean has not been kind to other young sailors who have sailed or attempted to sail around the world during the past two-plus years.

Southern California's Zac Sunderland, who completed a circumnavigation in July of 2009, spent three sleepless days and nights trying to prevent his boat from being battered by rigging torn loose by gale-force winds.

Laura Dekker, 15, proves plenty in first year of sailing odyssey

There was a time when Laura Dekker must have felt the entire world was against her. At 14 she was too young and too immature, people claimed, to sail a large boat around the world by herself.

But a lot has changed since the Dutch adventurer shoved off from Gibraltar last Aug. 21, embittered by criticism and court proceedings that for a time had made her a ward of the state, on a quest to become the youngest person to solo-circumnavigate the planet.

She has safely crossed the Atlantic and Pacific, and is in the Coral Sea aboard her beloved Guppy, a 38-foot twin-masted sailboat, bound for Darwin, Australia. Now 15, she's more than half way around the world, with the Indian Ocean representing her final major crossing.

What's remarkable is that Dekker -- who faced such harsh criticism and opposition in The Netherlands that she contemplated suicide -- has not experienced major troubles and has proved to be more skilled and independent than many people thought possible.

"It's easier to be so far from home than I thought," Dekker said in a statement released this week by her new manager, Lyall Mercer. "It's even better than I expected. It pretty much has become a lifestyle which I totally like."

Dekker ran away while in custody of the state child welfare agency, having somehow booked a flight by herself to the Dutch-controlled portion of St. Martin Island in the Caribbean. Ultimately, she was released from custody after winning the support of both of her divorced parents (her father had always supported her "dream" voyage while her mother originally opposed the journey).

Hers is the fifth attempt in two years by a teenage sailor aspiring to become the youngest to have solo-circumnavigated the planet. Southern California's Zac Sunderland completed a 13-month circumnavigation in 2009, at 17, and briefly held the distinction. England's Mike Perham, a slightly younger 17, stole that honor a month later.

Australia's Jessica Watson completed a non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation in May of 2010, just days before turning 17. Following not far behind, on the same daunting Southern Ocean route, was Abby Sunderland, Zac's sister. She was 16 when she was rescued after her 40-foot boat was damaged by a large wave in the southern Indian Ocean.

Teen sailor Laura Dekker nears Tonga amid tsunami warning

Laura Dekker, who at 15 is attempting to become the youngest sailor to solo-circumnavigate the planet, is on a leg from Bora Bora to Tonga and is fairly close to where a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Thursday morning (local time) north of New Zealand.

Tsunami warnings were issued for the Keramec Islands, New Zealand and Tonga. Dekker is not in any danger, of course, being at sea in deep water.

But it's interesting to note that fellow adventurer Abby Sunderland, when she was trying to sail around the world last year, was in fairly close proximity to a massive earthquake that devastated Chile and resulted in tsunami warnings and advisories being issued as far north as Alaska.

Sunderland's followers expressed concern and her family posted on her blog: "The ocean depth is so great where she is there is very little chance that she will experience even an unusual swell. The effects of a tsunami are felt when the wave action reaches shallow coastal waters. In fact being near the Southern California coast, we may be in more danger than her!"

Dekker, who is from The Netherlands, had not mentioned the earthquake on her blog. Her latest post was about an encounter with another Dutch yacht. "A solo sailor on a small Midget 26," wrote Dekker, who is aboard a 38-foot boat named Guppy. "We got closer and a middle-aged man played some songs on his accordion as we quietly bobbed alongside for a while.

"I tried to throw a chocolate bar over to him but after landing on his yacht it bounced into Neptune's kingdom."

Dekker plans to arrive at Tonga within 48 hours. By then the current warnings will have been lifted.

-- Image shows Laura Dekker's present location

Abby Sunderland now plotting to fly around the world

A year ago Abby Sunderland made global headlines as the subject of a dramatic rescue effort after her sailboat rolled over and lost its rigging in the remote southern Indian Ocean.

At 16, the fiercely determined adventurer from Southern California had been trying to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone. After her rescue she vowed, someday, to make the voyage again.

But now, at 17, Abby seems to have changed tack. She wants to fly around the world, and is even taking flying lessons while trying to figure out logistics and possible time lines.

Her mother said that's all there is to it at this point. Abby, to be sure, has been extremely busy promoting her book, "Unsinkable," and DVDs, and speaking before various audiences.

But she also is flying a lot, and in her mind is this new dream. And for a Sunderland, as Abby and her older brother and fellow sailor Zac have shown, once a dream takes hold it eventually blossoms into some form of reality.

Zac, as many recall, made it around the world in his sailboat after a 13-month adventure. He became the first person under the age of 18 to complete a solo-circumnavigation, and received a hero's welcome upon his return in July of 2009 to the starting point at Marina del Rey.

Abby's subsequent voyage, on a more treacherous Southern Ocean route, was a struggle most of the way and came to an abrupt end in stormy seas a little more than half way around the planet.

Now she is learning to fly from a family friend and dreams of seeing the world from the air. She revealed this ambition to her hometown newspaper, the Thousand Oaks Acorn.

"Right now I don’t have a boat and I don’t have a sponsor to sail around the world," she explained. "I do have a good flight instructor and flight lessons and people who are going to help pull off a flight around the world, so I think I’m going to stick with that for now."

Her shipwright father, Laurence Sunderland, who drained much of the family savings in support of both sailing excursions, told the Acorn: "She’s an adventurer, but, unfortunately, if that’s what she wants to do, I can’t help her there. I told her, if it’s the Lord’s will, then go for it."

Abby recently posted an item to her blog recalling her rescue a year to the day after the crew of a French fishing boat had plucked her from her damaged 40-foot sailboat, Wild Eyes.

She concluded that post with this passage: "You may support me, you may not, but as long as I live, I know I am going to take every opportunity that comes my way, chase every dream, and do all that I can to help others follow their dreams."

-- Image of Abby Sunderland courtesy of ©2011 GizaraArts.com

America's Cup excitement begins early as vessel capsizes

The sleek new AC45 catamarans to be used leading up to the 2013 America's Cup are incredibly fast and exciting, but they're also difficult to handle, as Russell Coutts proved Monday when he capsized aboard one during an exhibition on windswept San Francisco Bay.

 

Two crewmen were flung into the water during the mishap, which occurred as Coutts, CEO of defending champion Oracle Racing, was positioning for a start against Jimmy Spithill. There were no serious injuries.

"We got caught in the pre-start at the wrong angle and paid the price," Coutts, who fell through the lower part of the front element of the wingsail, said during a news conference. "The boats are spectacular, hard to sail. They're gonna test the best sailors in the world. Luckily I had the crash helmet on."

Coutts, 49, is a four-time America's Cup champion.

The exhibition marked the U.S. debut of the AC45s, which will be used during the America's Cup World Series through 2012. Sailors will then switch to 72-foot catamarans for the 34th America's Cup, to be staged in 2013.

The AC45s debuted in New Zealand earlier this year, during an event that also featured capsizes. Oracle Racing skipper Spithill is quoted on the team website as saying: "For us as sailors, the next America's Cup began in February with the launch of the prototype AC45. These boats are awesome to sail. In San Francisco you'll get rewarded for pushing the boat hard - unless you go over the limit!"

-- Video is courtesy of America's Cup

Teen sailor Laura Dekker conquers fear of sharks

If Laura Dekker has accomplished anything during her leisurely attempt to circle the planet alone in a sailboat, it's conquering a longstanding fear of sharks.

The 15-year-old Dutch adventurer is at anchor at the Galapagos Islands west of Ecuador, where she has been exploring and tidying up her 38-foot boat before continuing across the Pacific.

On Monday she and "three sailor friends" went diving in the company of hammerhead sharks, white-tip sharks and Galapagos sharks, which teemed in the clear, cool depths.

Dekker emerged with a much greater appreciation for the top-level predators."Those were exactly the sharks of my nightmares, and they did not do any harm to me," she wrote, in her most recent blog post. "About ten of them swam below me and they were not interested in us at all!"

Dekker, who aspires to become the youngest person to solo-circumnavigate the planet in a sailboat, departed from Gibraltar late last August and has crossed the Atlantic and passed through the Panama Canal.

(Australia's Jessica Watson is the youngest, having completed a nonstop, unassisted journey last May, just days before turning 17.)

Dekker, though she has about 17 months to become the youngest, is on a pace that implies she's  more interested simply in enjoying the adventure. She spent weeks island hopping in the Caribbean, and has spent several days at the Galapagos.

It's hard to find fault with this outlook. The Caribbean is a vacationor's paradise and the Galapagos are one of the natural wonders of the world; and Dekker's next leg will be her longest yet: 3,000 nautical miles to the Marquesas in French Polynesia.

That crossing will represent her truest test as a sailor, and promises bouts of both doldrums and nasty weather. But at least images of bloodthirsty sharks will no longer haunt her dreams.

-- Image of Laura Dekker at the Galapagos Islands is among those posted on her website

With new book, sailor Abby Sunderland finally has her say

Seconds later, I woke up lying on the roof with things falling on top of me. The engine box cover, the floorboard, the teakettle, my toolbag, loose tools that I had just been using -- all hitting me in the chest, legs, face. The sea had turned Wild Eyes upside down."

-- Abby Sunderland, co-author and subject of "Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas"

By Pete Thomas

Finally, a book. Could a movie deal be far behind?

Nine months after Abby Sunderland became the focus of a dramatic search-and-rescue mission, after the 16-year-old adventurer had become stranded for two terrifying days on a crippled yacht atop the furious Indian Ocean, she's about to share intricate details about that ordeal and other aspects of her ill-fated attempt to become the youngest person to solo-sail around the world.

"Unsinkable," co-authored by Lynn Vincent, arrives on store shelves April 19 (Thomas Nelson, $22.99). In the book, Sunderland describes enduring fierce winds and massive seas before being slammed against the cabin bulkhead and knocked briefly unconscious as her 40-foot sailboat, Wild Eyes, abruptly rolled, losing its mast and communications equipment.

She spent a bone-chilling night and part of the next day, after activating two emergency beacons, not knowing whether help would arrive; likewise, her parents and many fans did not know whether she was still alive, had been cast overboard, or had become trapped inside her overturned vessel.

Finally, shivering and exhausted, after crawling from the dryness of a cramped sail locker and out onto the deck, she spotted a low-flying Qantas Airbus -- a team sent from Australia to try to pinpoint her position for a fishing boat steaming toward the area -- and that's when she became truly afraid. "That moment was the most frightened I had ever been," Sunderland writes. "I knew that if that plane didn't see me right then, they'd be gone, off to search somewhere else in the massive waters of the Indian Ocean."

Tha sailor was delivered safely to her parents' home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., of course, and went to work producing her version of a story told so many different ways by others -- in the days after those beacons were activated last June 10 -- during a media storm that spun wildly out of control and besieged Laurence and Marianne Sunderland with unrelenting and hurtful criticism.

"Unsinkable" is told largely through Abby's voice and includes touching commentary about topics such as growing up in a homeschooled sailing family and living for extended periods aboard a cruising yacht, experiencing life's pleasures -- sailing, snorkeling, fishing, meeting people from other cultures, etc. -- without TVs and hand-held computers.

Details about her sailing odyssey -- rounding treacherous Cape Horn with a faulty auto-pilot, for example -- paint a vivid portrait of a courageous adventurer determined to overcome all obstacles.

The book is a fast read except when it dwells  on the family's unpleasant experiences with critics and especially documentary crews the parents believe treated them unfairly. But certainly, these many sideshows were part of Abby's story.

Additionally, there are so many references to God's apparent role in helping Abby to pull through difficult times that it seems they were forced into various circumstances by the Christian-leaning publisher.

But overall "Unsinkable" does a good job of setting the Sunderlands apart from typical families. It explains why Abby was allowed, reluctantly, to attempt to sail around the world alone after her older brother Zac completed a successful 13-month solo-circumnavigation that began at age 16 in 2009.

The book also drives home the message that Abby's adventure transformed her into a stronger person.

As someone who closely followed both Sunderland adventures, I got to know Zac and Abby fairly well and can attest to much of what Abby suggests in the book. She states early on that before embarking on her circumnavigation attempt she was shy, lacked confidence around others and, as she explains, was "afraid of messing up and embarrassing myself."

She dreaded her news conference before setting sail from Marina del Rey on Jan. 23, 2010. But she pulled through admirably, thanks to the support of her family -- with Zac by her side -- and close family friends.

Fast forward to her post-rescue homecoming news conference on June 29, 2010, at the marina's Del Rey Yacht Club, where she sat confidently -- unsinkable -- beneath bright lights and faced a barrage of questions from reporters. In the book she recalls that experience:

"The reporters were asking good questions and they seemed to appreciate my answers. I could've talked on and on. What? Me? Talk on and on? To reporters? In my old 'normal' life at home, I had been afraid of so many things. Of people. Of making mistakes. Of embarrassing myself. I had seen myself as this sort of shy, quiet homeschooler who preferred to be alone rather than with groups of friends.

"But my trip broke me out into a whole new world -- filmmakers, fishermen, pilots, teachers, technicians, mechanics, scientists, little kids ... So many people cared and helped and cheered me on, shaping and changing my life forever."

Will there be a big-screen movie about Abby and the sailing Sunderlands? Perhaps not, but if Abby has her way there will be a sequel to her adventure. "I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again," she concludes. "In fact, I can't wait for the chance to try again."

-- Pete Thomas

Photos of Abby Sunderland during her departure and post-rescue news conference are courtesy of Lisa Gizara  of Gizara Arts and Abbysunderland.org

Teen sailor Laura Dekker lashes out against media

Laura Dekker, the 15-year-old Dutch adventurer who is preparing to cross the Pacific as part of an effort to become the youngest sailor to solo-circumnavigate the planet, seems intent on turning even the most supportive of journalists against her.

It was clear before now that Dekker, who has spent the past several weeks in the Caribbean after an Atlantic crossing, is jaded toward the media. That's somewhat understandable, given the many critical news reports before and since her departure from Gibraltar last August.

But her latest blog entry might be perceived as the handiwork of a spoiled brat, not a courageous adventurer. Here are Dekker's comments, after a night crossing from San Blas Islands to Shelter Bay Marina in Panama:

"Early this morning I arrived in Panama, right into the thick of crowds of people and cargo ships. I have been
 busy non-stop since. The press people stood immediately in front of my nose, and because the Shelter Bay Marina sponsors me, I could not ignore them.

"They always ask me the same questions over and over again and are often clueless about me. This time, I even was asked my name... ! She really did
not know, and I was so perplexed it took me a while before I could utter that my name is Laura.

"Sure I was tired after the night crossing, and now I really 
felt very tired of all the people around me pretending to be interested and
 knowledgeable about me. My good mood slowly faded to an inner anger that I
 always feel when people treat me like a celebrity. And then they often come 
up with the most mind-boggling or stupid questions."

One could chalk this up to Dekker simply being irritable after a night of sailing, but it's not the first time she has used her blog to level criticism toward reporters.

Maybe she just needs to get on with her odyssey. An important question, whether she can safely pilot her 38-foot twin-masted sailboat across the Pacific, will be answered over the next few months.

That will be a true test of her maturity and, despite what she thinks of journalists, most will be pulling for her.

-- Pete Thomas

Only 219 large white sharks off California, study claims

For anyone who has wondered how many large great white sharks lurk off California, researchers for the first time have produced a science-based estimate: 219.

That's the number of adult and sub-adult white sharks -- those about nine feet or longer -- believed to be utilizing California waters after an innovative photo-identification study conducted at seasonal shark haunts off Central California.

The number is surprisingly and perhaps alarmingly low given the key role white sharks, as apex predators, play in maintaining a healthy marine environment.

The study's lead author, UC Davis doctoral student Taylor Chapple, stated in a news release: "It's lower than we expected, and also substantially smaller than populations of other large marine predators, such as killer whales and polar bears. However, this estimate only represents a single point in time; further research will tell us if this number represents a healthy, viable population, or one critically in danger of collapse, or something in-between."

One prominent scientist has disputed the number, calling it a significant underestimation, based largely on his theory that not all large white sharks in California utilize those Central California haunts. Chapple said his group was not accounting for every shark in the northeastern Pacific, but acknowledged that the 219 figure was an estimate for California waters.

The collaborative study, published today in the journal Biology Letters, involved some of the world's foremost white shark experts. They collected 321 photographs of dorsal fins from what, based on distinctive markings, turned out to be 130 individual sharks. Data from this study -- and previous studies that determined the same sharks were visiting the same areas year after year -- were extrapolated to determine a population estimate.

Involved in the study were 69 male white sharks, 19 females and 42 sharks of undetermined sex.

White sharks, once they reach 8-9 feet, begin to shift from fishes and rays as food items to seals and sea lions. In California this also marks the point at which they travel from Southern California to rookeries off Central California. (The study area included the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco and Tomales Point to the north on the mainland.)

Late summer and fall are feeding periods at the rookeries. During the winter, these large sharks migrate to a vast offshore area between the mainland and Hawaii, where they spend about five months of each year.

The population study did not take into account juvenile or young-of-the-year white sharks. Also, the 219 figure does not include white sharks that utilize waters around Guadalupe Island, a seal rookery 150 miles west of Ensenada in Baja California.

That's because there's no evidence of Guadalupe white sharks visiting Central or Southern California coastal waters; those sharks, therefore, are believed to belong to a separate sub-population.

Somali pirates seize Danish sailboat with children aboard

Pirates have hijacked another sailboat in the Indian Ocean, this time with Danish citizens aboard.

The Danish news agency Ritzau is reporting that a couple and three children, plus two crew members, are on the sailboat. It's apparently being piloted toward Somalia.

The hijacking occurred last Thursday, two days after four American sailors were killed by Pirates after a high-profile hijacking in the Indian Ocean north of the Gulf of Aden. In that incident, U.S. naval forces killed two pirates and took several others captive after hearing gunshots aboard the hijacked boat.

It's not known how far from Somalia the latest hijacking occurred. Adventure sailors, naturally, are urged to steer well clear of the Somalia coast and to avoid routes that include the Gulf of Aden.

-- Pete Thomas