Mr.& Mrs. should be drawn and quartered
This is a 15 year olds decision on a night like this?
No where near enough experience. Tragic.
I have been there you do not go to bed.
"By midnight tonight I could have 35-50 knots with gusts to 60," she wrote. "I am off to sleep before it really picks up."
Search Planned for US Teen Who Was Sailing the WorldUpdated: 1 hour 11 minutes ago
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AOL News (June 10) -- Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old American attempting to sail solo around the world, is feared lost after all contact with her boat ended while she was 400 miles off the coast of Madagascar.
Two emergency beacons from her boat have been activated, her father, Laurence Sunderland, told AOL News. The activation of one of those beacons normally means the sailor is in the water or in a lifeboat.
"We're in the middle of orchestrating a full-on search and rescue for Abigail," he said.
Abby set sail from California on Jan. 23, according to ABC News. On her blog, she said she has dreamed of sailing around the world by herself since she was 13.
"I'm happy to do it alone," she told ABC News after setting out.
In a Wednesday entry in her blog titled "A Rough Few Days," she describes high winds buffeting the boat and damaging her Internet connection.
"By midnight tonight I could have 35-50 knots with gusts to 60," she wrote. "I am off to sleep before it really picks up."
Laurence Sunderland spoke to his daughter during the night, though contact was intermittent, he told AOL News. At first the family thought she had broken contact because she was charging the phone, but "there wasn't a call back."
Australian officials are sending a plane to look for Abby, Sunderland said.
When she began her round-the-world attempt, her parents acknowledged the risk but said that did not justify stopping their daughter.
"Could there be a tragedy?" MaryAnne Sunderland told ABC News. "Yeah, there could be. But there could be a tragedy on the way home tonight, you know, or driving with her friends in a car at 16."
Not everyone took such a relaxed approach, however. T.J. Simers, a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has said that allowing Abby to make the attempt was child abuse.
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