Today we listened to teen sailor Abby Sunderland defend her choice to sail around the world alone at such a young age. One commenter found no problem with her age, but with her motives for going when she did.

From Curunir:

I don't necessarily have a problem with her age. I sailed around the world myself from 17-18 years old. I did it with a group of similarly aged kids, on a sailboat, over 16 months. My problem (and what all of yours should be as well) is that she set off at a terrible time so that she could cash in on her age. It's BS that she did it for the sake of "just to do it". If so, she would have set off from Cali in our summer, putting her in the Southern Indian Ocean in its summer, when THERE WOULDN'T BE THIRTY FOOT WAVES.

Nobody, except for million dollar+ battle-tested sailboats and crews go into the southern indian during winter. It's storm fucking city. But if she had left this summer, she wouldn't be in line to break a record, and thus, wouldn't have anything to sell.

That is the correct method to criticize her and her family. It ain't just the age, it was the lack of care of when she was going, just for the sake of making money. This in a sense, is similar to the "Into Thin Air" story, but worse that she was a minor and shouldn't have been allowed to go.

Child Services should investigate and sanction the parents for being money hungry. Kid should not have gone in January.