Thaindian News

Abby Sunderland, the sixteen year old who is hoping to be the youngest sailor to ever circumnavigate the world alone is feared to be lost at sea, after her crew lost all contact with her boat today (Thursday).

A rescue effort has been formed with the hopes of finding the teenage sailor, who was said to have activated her emergency beacons somewhere in the Indian Ocean early this morning. The location devices were manually set off, meaning the girl had likely tripped them herself. One of those beacons is apparently attached to her survival suit, and is meant to be used if a person is either in a life raft or in the water.

This fact has made her father very worried, since he does not know if she is in the water, on a raft, or if her boat has turned over with her in it. “Everything seemed to be under control,” Laurence Sunderland said. “But then our call dropped and a hour later the Coast Guard called.”

He was referring to the fact that Abby had called her parents, and told them she had endured 60 knot winds, which caused her to undergo ‘knockdowns’ several times. What this means is that her sails touched the water repeatedly during the winds. The conditions quickly calmed, however, and it seemed as though everything would be okay.

Instead, the call suddenly dropped, and an hour later, the US Coast Guard called Abby’s parents to tell them that her emergency beacons had been activated. The girl is hundreds of miles from land, and a rescue effort is being conducted by the Reunion Islands and Australia.

The Sunderlands are asking for readers to be in prayer for the safety of their daughter, a high school junior who is from Thousand Oaks California.