When a sailor overcomes crushing adversity, there’s a massive sense of accomplishment.
ABBY SUNDERLANDOn June 10, the worst storm in the series swept across the middle of the Indian Ocean and Wild Eyes was directly in its path.
More Abby Sunderland Quotes
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In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.
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On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.
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One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.
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The terrifying physics of going up-mast in heavy seas are inescapable.
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Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.
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Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.
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I will definitely attempt to sail around the world again. In fact, I can’t wait for the chance to try again.
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If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn’t run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.
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The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby’s boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below.
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Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.
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If a big wave came at the wrong moment, it would sweep me off into forty-eight-degree water, where I might last twenty minutes. Drowning quickly might be better.
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Going up the mast is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a solo sailor.
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Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.
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I had begun to think that dreams are meant to be no more than dreams and that in reality dreams don’t come true. Then my brother (Zac) left on his trip.
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But none of that kept me from picturing what a tsunami might look like if it did rise up and roar toward my little boat like some watery blue version of the Great Wall of China.
ABBY SUNDERLAND