Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas by Abby Sunderland & Lynn Vincent

Author:Abby Sunderland & Lynn Vincent [Sunderland, Abby & Vincent, Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation, Adventurers & Explorers, Biography & Autobiography, Family & Relationships, Life Stages, Sailing, book, Water Sports, Teenagers, ebook
ISBN: 9781400203093
Google: 9OhpLVADPQwC
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-04-11T23:59:30.090523+00:00

The distance between Thousand Oaks, California, and Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, is 6,846 miles. But that calculation is “as the crow flies,” and Laurence Sunderland would not be making the trip on a crow. Instead, on March 24, he drove an hour from Thousand Oaks to Marina del Rey, then took a taxi to LAX (which is not as easy as it sounds, depending on the snarl of Los Angeles traffic). After inching through security queues and a two-hour wait in the terminal, he boarded an airline called Lan Chile and flew eleven hours to Santiago, Chile, then took a connecting flight to the international airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Air-wise from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, the saying held true: you can’t get there from here . . . unless you take a hair-raising ride with an Argentine taxi driver. Laurence did, hanging on tight through the labyrinthine streets of Buenos Aires to another little airport from which small planes would ferry paying passengers to Tierra del Fuego, which is often called the “End of the Earth.”

Laurence had already sailed and traveled to so many places in the world that he didn’t need to see another magnificent snowy peak or ride a boat down some new and exotic waterway. He didn’t even particularly care about seeing Cape Horn. All he wanted was to be there when his daughter conquered the Cape. He wanted to say “Hello! Great job!” He wanted to give her a boost.

He also hoped to film Abby’s record-breaking passage and had brought along a couple of fancy cameras to do the job. Reveille had reversed its rights to Magnetic Entertainment’s proposed television program, and the Sunderlands had declined to work further with Ted Caloroso. After the reversion, Chris Bates presented the Sunderlands with a new contract that would have given him the rights to continue shopping a reality show. Though Laurence and Marianne liked and trusted Chris, they had decided to steer clear of Hollywood for the time being. But they still wanted a video record of Abby’s trip.

Being the youngest person to solo around Cape Horn would be a major accomplishment, and the Sunderlands wanted to document it. Aboard Wild Eyes, Abby had some GoPro “point of view” cameras and two Canon High Definition video cameras. Together with footage shot in Marina del Rey and Cabo, along with Abby’s homecoming, film of her rounding the Horn would make a treasured keepsake.

The Sunderlands’ Argentina contact, John Selby, picked up Laurence from the airport and took him to his home for a meal. After that, it was off to an inexpensive hotel for the night. Laurence remembers being so exhausted by then that he felt as if his eyeballs were literally hanging out of his head.

The next morning, John introduced Laurence to Ian Upsall, an Aussie skipper who had agreed to motor south from Cape Horn to try to connect father and daughter on this historic segment of her journey. Laurence, Ian, and two other crew members got underway on Ian’s boat, Persimmon, sailing east along the Beagle Channel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.