The orginal plan was to set sail next month in a sensible boat, entering the Southern latitudes by October and leaving them before March 2011. Good plan, and the last sensible one they had.
At this time (July 2009) they thought of getting Abby home by April 2011 would make her the youngest solocircumnavigator.
But July 2009 was also the month of the Sydney International Boating Show and articles like With Jessica Watson and Spirit of Mystery At Sydney Boat Show Young girl, with boat looking nearly ready to go, just waiting for weather window. And just by being show neighbours, she convinced Colin Merry and Pete Goss of Spirit of Mystery that she also had the awesome crazy that a long distance sailor needs to succeed (build a replica of a 160 year old Cornish Fishing lugger and sail it from England to Australia around the Cape of Good Hope - yeah that's sensible).
At Thousand Oaks things went crazy (and not awesome crazy). Bad decisions followed. To get Abby the "record", they had to buy a fast race boat NOW, (Jess didn't need to buy a boat, she had convinced another awesome crazy adventurer, Don McIntyre, to lend her one), and hope they could catch up.
They couldn't. 
After Jess made it home, Laurie Sunderland abandoned the timid weather routing Abby had been given before Capetown and sent her down into the Roaring Forties and storms, and her blog posts (tame until now) took on an air of excitement and Hollywood drama - one might almost think they were trying to generate public attention.