16 year old to sail around the world

[Bud H.]

http://www.zacsunderland.com/

This is a link to Zac Sunderlands web page. He leaves this Saturday (May 31) to sail around the world alone in his 36" Islander

[rgraham]

Looks like he needs a new engine. This is really cool what a thing to do at 16, I'd love to try it at 48.

[sleather]

rgraham, :lol3: Just so happens that one of my all time favorite stories was about Robin Lee Graham who at 16 set sail on his circumnavigation. Took him 5 years and a couple of boats though.

Dove is a very good read and ......

Good Luck Zac! that 36" Islander has to be a record too!:egrin:

[Dave Hussey]

I dont have the cajones to sail that far from land...so I probably am not worthy to ask this question, but what does he needs an engine for? :esad:

The lad has my full respect, and admiration. Fair winds, Zack.

[Seth]

The Islander 36, designed by Alan Gurney, is a very well proven offshore boat, and I am sure Zac's is not the first one to sail around the world. These boats are in the same league as E-boats in terms of engineering and structure (for the vintage), and IMHO is a great choice for a young person to make this trip in-they are strong, relatively fast and excellent upwind boats-all important features for this type of voyage.

The engine is there for several reasons-to have a reliable power supply to run the instruments-you can have solar chargers, but this guy is going to spend a lot of time and power communicating with sponsors, media and others, so his consumption may be quite high-and hour with a fast charger will get the batteries right up.

Also, since this is not a non-stop voyage, he will want the engine to enter many of the harbors he is likely to encounter-being alone, it will be much safer than trying to sail to a dock or pier. Many of these areas have strong tidal currents, so if entering in light air he may have insufficient control under sail.

Finally, he may want to use it to escape an area of light air (I don't think this trip precludes using the engine for motive power at times). Since he will have good weather routing support, he may be stuck in a big hole and know there is breeze 100 miles away.-Power on and get to the breeze at 6 knots sounds a lot better than drfiting around for days on end...

Cheers,
S

[Dave Hussey]

Thanks Seth, of course, it does make sense now.
It should be quite an adventure, and I hope he has automatic cameras set up to document it for the rest of the sailing community to enjoy.