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.
edit on 9-2-2012 by CaptChaos because: (no reason given)