What an idiotic thing to say.
Because that’s what this girl was doing - fighting a war, right?
She was sailing, and it wasn’t her first time in a boat either.
Mozart composed the Magic Flute when he was 5. Think he should have received his degree in music first?
Trouble at sea on a sailing yacht can happen to anyone. If she’d have been 18, would you feel better about this? 19? 20? I recovered a yacht sailing close-hauled 300 miles off of California with nobody aboard.
It was owned by a stock-broker who thought he could retire at 41 and single-hand it to Australia as his first offshore cruise. Guaranteed he fell off and the yacht sailed away at 9 knots without him, all because he wasn’t wearing a life vest with an EPIRB, wasn’t strapped in, and thought because he could corner the market, he could sail to Australia.
In my time in the CG, I’ll take the diligence of a sea scout with 5 years experience in sailing off shore with a healthy fear of the sea over a 41 year old adult with way too much money. In fact, we had a sort of law for it - the inverse law of money - the more expensive the boat, the less qualified the master was to pilot it.
And I’m also saying that there is a tremendous amount of luck involved with offshore sailing. Weather and seas change fast. In a sail boat, you are at the mercy of the wind. If you’re under power, you have more options, and you still might get hammered.
We took 56 degree rolls in an icebreaker not 100 miles off Puget Sound. Worst weather of a 7 month circumnavigation of North America - within sight of the beach.
She’s 16. Her parents didn’t buy her a yacht and say, “See you in a year. Send postcards.”
You’ve been conditioned to believe you need someone to declare you ‘qualified’ in order to do anything of substance in life. How long has this girl been practicing prior to her doing this cruise?
You were the one saying that we ought to have more 12 year olds fighting wars, not me.
My point is that people are capable of amazing things at very young ages, and that EVERYONE should have the benefit of being evaluated on their merits regardless of race, gender, creed, OR AGE.
It’s your interpretation that was idiotic. Not my observation.