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.
That was put very well Having boated in So. California my whole life . Id love to know what cutters you were on here I spent a little time on the old Point Bridge out of MDR
They sold it to costa rica
Let's not get carried away. I certainly would agree that there is nothing wrong with a 16 year-old sailing wherever she wants. It's our stupid education system that warehouses children and treats them as incompetents. But you obviously know nothing about Mozart or his work, and so shouldn't make comments related to him.
ML/NJ
Touche!
It's not about her abilities as a sailor. It's about her ability to evaluate risks, the possible outcomes regarding some of those risks and make a sound judgment regarding them. The best sailor in the world is unlikely to do that if they are 16. That's what parents are for.
She's a 16 year old girl, alone at sea, hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles from any assistance should anything go wrong. If she was 18, then she alone could make the choice to do something so hazardous. But at 16, her parents could've stopped her, maybe explained to her that being on the open ocean for six months is not an appropriate exercise for a young girl.
Their stupidity and incompetence have now apparently cost their daughter her life.
If her ship capsized or sank, she is quite possibly right now floating alone on the open ocean, thousands of miles from any rescue in shark infested waters, and she's going to die freezing cold and terrified, knowing that she'll never see her family again.
And for what?
Just so we can say that we "evaluate people on their merits regardless of race, gender, creed, OR AGE."
How stupid.
I hope she is found soon.
Reading this thread I see why we have seat belt laws, helmet laws. People want to bring the full cohersive power of the State to bear, guns, money, personell, jail, to compell everyone to be “reasonable”. Freedom has risks. Risk has consequence. Therefore Freedom means accepting bad outcomes. If you don’t want bad outcomes, eliminate risk, at gun point ultimately.
If you don’t wear your seat belt, your neighbors have decided that you should. Ultimately cops will shoot you to make sure you pay your fine if you object to the enforcement of that law too strenuously.