Rime of the ridiculously underage mariner

Abby Sunderland, the sixteen year old who was feared lost at sea, is safe ^[1]. Sunderland had been attempting to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world when her boat went missing on Thursday. After an agonizing stretch of twenty hours with no contact from the teen, a search plane spotted her boat and confirmed her safety. Sunderland will abandon her voyage and return home to California. This is truly wonderful news. And now that we’ve all breathed a huge sigh of relief, I have one question: Why the hell was a child allowed to sail around the world by herself?

For the love of Amerigo Vespucci, why in the Vasco de Gama did this girl’s parents allow her to do something so dangerous? Actually, I have a lot of questions about this whole stupid situation. Here are three, just off the top of my head:

• 1. Why the Nina isn’t this girl in school?
• 2. Why in the name of the Pinta is the press referring to Sunderland as “a lifelong sailor ^[2]“? She’s sixteen. That’s like referring to an infant as “a lifelong bed-wetter.”
• 3. What the Santa Maria is up with this new trend of teenagers challenging world records? For those who have not been following completely asinine news, a thirteen-year-old recently became the youngest person ever to climb Mount Everest ^[3]. Is risking your life the new hip thing to do? Sir Francis Drake, I hope not! When I was in high school, we didn’t spend our time trying to break into the Guinness Book of World Records. We had much more important goals to accomplish, like attempting to spend five hours in a diner while only ordering coffee. Have you ever pulled a stunt like that? Now that’s dangerous.