you're making a lot of statements there....have you ever even been on a sailboat? it is perfectly possible for 1 person to "drive" a sailboat.

You do realise she did have different people along for certain parts of the trip right ? e.g your reference to the panama canal - this was a safety issue for her. She has never denied having people on board.

What makes you think she can't sail a yacht by herself ?
I know younger people who are quite capable of the task.
When you grow up in a sailing family, you learn how to sail without brute strength.
Which parts of this particular yacht require a level of strength a 14 year old girl does not posess?
Please elaborate.
If you're talking about ropes/pulleys, you do realise modern technology has taken the need for strength out of sailing right ?

Experts ?

Please, I posed a few questions to you in my previous response, if you could try to answer any of them, I'll be impressed.

I would specifically like you to elaborate on why you think a 14 yr old girl is incapable of sailing a yacht by herself. I have tried translating the report you linked in google translate, but it all comes up a gibberish, and is barely understandable.

I know younger people who can sail match racing yachts.

I don't know the girl who sailed, and I really couldnt' care less about her record, but the claims made in the OP are so outlandish I couldn't resist posting.

Originally posted by metalshredmetal
you're making a lot of statements there....have you ever even been on a sailboat? it is perfectly possible for 1 person to "drive" a sailboat.

It is perfectly possible, but it takes a lot of knowledge and major outlay of effort, and several major modifications to be able to do this, especially on such a venture as a round the world voyage.

None of these modifications appear to have been done to the boat she used. If you look at pictures and video of other adventurers returning from round the world sailing trips, even with more than one person, they are frail, exhausted, and tend to have lost quite a bit of weight.

None of which appears to have happened in this case. For a round the world sail a 14 year old would have to be pretty much on her toes 24 hours a day for the whole trip, taking a major toll on her body and mind.

None of these signs appear to be showing.

The boat appears to be exceptionally clean and in exceptionally good shape for a boat with only a 14 year old on board and on a round the world trip.

The absence of any sort of wear or tear on the deck at all would be the most telling part of this story for me.

i deleted all the details because due to translation they may sounded too generous and i have nothing to do with them besides i have no clue about sailing - the video is the main point and there are tonns of supporting evidence stated in the article, claims made by experts...not me

What next?
The first 6 year old to sail around the world?
I see some dead kids in the future if Guiness allows this to be an achievement.
Why do we want our babies braving the elements just for 15 minutes of fame?
What a stupid thing to do.

These conspiracies turn up everywhere, don't they?

I bet she never landed on the Moon either.

i'd get on the boat with her in a few years.... fraud or not

OK I have to chime in. I've been on boats since I was in diapers. I could swim before I could walk. I could sail a dinghy by myself when I was five. I've been sailing and racing boats ever since. I have crossed the Pacific and the Atlantic twice, the first time when I was 13. I have won the Bermuda race three times. I stopped counting after I topped 100 thousand miles at sea. I got a Merchant Marine Officer's ticket when I was eighteen, and was a professional captain for over twenty five years. Just to say, I have a LOT of experience. You would call me an expert. Far beyond that even.

This is no big deal. That is called a Treadmaster deck on the boat in that video, it's indestructible. Boats do not get battered and fall apart from sailing, barring huge storms. Even then, it's not like it rots away. The boat would of course be in fine condition after a circumnavigation, it's a brand new boat. The crew usually hold up quite well also. I usually feel far MORE rested after a long trip, standing watches and being up at all hours, than after a forty hour work week under flourescent lights.

A fourteen year old could easily handle a dinky 34 foot boat. Even a girl. Boats have these radical things called winches that multiply your strength. They invented them thousands of years ago, this is not modern technology. It might take a little girl longer to crank in the jibsheet, but she is not in a race here.

No one is permitted to singlehand through the Panama Canal. Duh. You MUST have at least four people on board to handle lines in the locks. All three times I've been through it, I went ahead and hired a local pilot. It is not mandatory, nor do I need his help, but makes all the locals happy and gets you through smoothly.

Going through the Canal is kind of cheating for a circumnavigation. But, it keeps you in the tropics. Apparently none of you know what the Southern Ocean is. Between Antarctica and the tips of South America (Cape Horn) and Africa (Cape of Good Hope) there is a thousand mile wide band of water around the whole planet. Waves build up due to three things: wind speed, duration of wind in the same direction, and FETCH, or the distance the waves have to build up. This is why the waves are so big in the ocean, and will never get that big in LI Sound or SF Bay; not enough fetch. Even here in the Caribbean, we have about a thousand miles of fetch, so the waves can't really get that big. In the Southern Ocean, you have unlimited fetch. There is nothing to stop the wind or the waves all the way around the world. You can count on at least fifty foot waves on a calm day, and those who don't know how big waves are, that is HUGE. You would probably wet your pants and then die of a heart attack if you EVER saw one. You can add in icebergs and subzero temp year round. IT"S GNARLY DOWN THERE.

There are several round the world races. Fully crewed, monohull, multihull. Even a single handed one. These are grown men, but there are women in it too. And we are talking boats around six times the size of that dinky Jeanneau. They do NOT go through the Canal. Most of the race is IN the Southern Ocean. They alll make it without being worn out and starved like you all seem to think someone would be from such a trip. This little girl spent 500 days at sea. The record is down well under eighty days now.

I also think she just may not have a record. First of all, 500 days is over a year. If she is fourteen, she must have started when she was TWELVE. I don't think so. And I think going through the Canal is sort of cheating.

A kid named Robin something did it singlehanded at age 16, a long time ago. That was the record. Google "Voyage of the Lonesome Dove" A man named Joshua Slocum was the first person known that did it, over a hundred years ago. No winches, no engine, no GPS, no depthfinder. All old school. Big deal, you say? HE WAS EIGHTY YEARS OLD. Google him if you want a GREAT story.

A girl named Tania Aebi did it in the eighties at age 16. That was the standing record. I believe she was almost twenty by the time she finished.

Sailing around the world is a big deal, but it is nowhere near as big a deal as you landlubbers think it is. That is, for someone experienced. You all would probably die out there, I'm not kidding. Me, I would think nothing of crossing the ocean in a freaking canoe with a blue plastic tarp for a sail. I KNOW I would make it.

That article in German was written by an idiot who does not have the faintest clue about a boat. Does not know the pointy end from the flat end, I can tell from the article, even a garbled Google translation of it. That was written by a landlubber who does not know what he's talking about. However, I do. There is no fraud here, there is no guy hiding behind the camera, that is freaking ridiculous. I think going through the Canal makes it not valid.