Teen sailor Abby Sunderland may be lost at sea, search effort underway

Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old girl attempting to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the world alone, may be lost at sea and a search effort is underway to locate the California teenager.

Sunderland has not been heard from since emergency beacons on her boat were activated early this morning:

However, her parents lost satellite phone contact with her early Thursday morning and an hour later were notified by the coast guard at French-controlled Reunion Islands that both of Sunderland’s EPIRB satellite devices on board her vessel Wild Eyes had been activated.

One of the devices is apparently attached to a survival suit and is meant to be used when a person is in the water or a life raft.

At the time Abby lost contact with shore, the nearest vessel was 400 miles away and the teen was facing waves of up to 25 feet and winds up to 35 knots. A recent update to Abby’s blog by her parents indicates that the teen’s distress beacon was activated not by water, but manually. Abby’s parents describe the rescue efforts underway to locate the teen, but say it might be nearly two days before teams can reach her location:

We are working closely with American, French and Australian Search & Rescue authorities to coordinate several ships in the area to divert to her location. There are several ships in her area, the earliest possible contact is 40 hours. We are actively seeking out some sort of air rescue but this is difficult due to the remoteness of her location. Australian Search & Rescue have arranged to have a Quantas Airbus fly over her location at first light (she is 11 hours later). They will not be able to help her other than to talk via marine radio if they are able to get close enough. Hopefully, they will be able to assess her situation and report back to us.

Abby has all of the equipment on board to survive a crisis situation like this. She has a dry suit, survival suit, life raft, and ditch bag with emergency supplies. If she can keep warm and hang on, help will be there as soon as possible. Wild Eyes is designed for travel in the Southern Ocean and is equipped with 5 air-tight bulkheads to keep her buoyant in the event of major hull damage. It is built to Category 0 standards and is designed to self-right in the event of capsize.