Or fly a plane across the continent solo.The Everest kids, they’re in a somewhat different class, nobody tries that Solo. The 16 year old Child displaying childish petulance about people who think that a)she’s a spoiled Princess whose mommy and daddy gave her a boat to play with and b) her parents are Glory Hounds who no doubt hope to profit from her “adventure” wrote on her Facebook blog “how young is too young? The storm and surf would be a danger for anybody!”
Uhh… yeah, Fat chance on getting insurance with an attitude like that. That leads back to the idea that Solo Yachting is a really dumb thing to do. Usually if you’re going to do solo boating you do it where there’s a reasonable chance for reasonable rescue. As it was, this “fiercely independent” little girl had to be rescued in an expensive manner by the Australian navy.
I don’t notice her Rich Bitch glory-hound Mommy and Daddy doing something really intelligent like having other boats shadow the yacht, rescue teams, safety in numbers, right?
Being part of a fleet wouldn’t abrogate the implied contract of being Solo on the boat. If Mommy and Daddy and her corporate sponsors don’t want to provide a backup team at THEIR expense rather than depending “solo”ly on the Public Safety resources of every nation whose national territorial waters she’s in or closest too, then they really don’t need the glory or fame or the Corporate Money that comes from such an “adventure”. Columbus had 3 boats, didn’t even get all the way to America and actually needed the two backup boats, while island hopping.
The search and rescue resources are expensive in more than cash.
There’s also the drain on the common safety on the high seas.
Where the vast majority of people riding the waves are doing so for reasons other than vainglory and the “personal victory” of setting a record that just encourages other Rich Parents to say “humm… a 14 or 13 year old kid is physically and mentally able to sail a yacht, let’s see if Junior or Princess can bring Glory to the family name and Corporate Sponsorship to the family bank account”
Oh, about that Transcontinental Flight thing… the kid wasn’t allowed to solo. She DID have her dad and their flight instructor on board.
Following the Wyoming tragedy, the FAA has wisely decided to review its lack of a minimum age requirement for flight lessons. Some experts think young children, who have to be older to drive cars, do not have sufficient coordination to fly airplanes. One has to be 16 to get a student license permitting solo flight, and 17 to qualify for a pilot’s license.
The Guinness Book of World Records has discontinued its
“youngest pilots” listings to discourage dangerous record-setting attempts. Jessica was trying to beat transcontinental records (for “youngest,” not
“fastest” ) set in recent years by 8- and 9-year-olds.
But haste or adult misjudgment, rather than age, may turn out to be the culprits in this heart-breaking crash.
The kid was 7. She would have been graduating college right about now, maybe considering marriage, having if not a “normal” life, at least having ANY life.
The first transcontinental solo flights, and solo circumnavigations, were taken with at least a veneer of technical scientific research, to see if both machine and pilot would be actually able to meet the rigors of such flights. Same with the first nautical circumnavigations, after that the “Solo” and “youngest” parts were really superfluous.
Magellan no doubt had sailors on his boats younger than 16. Professional sailors at the time were normally started in the profession at age 10. For the same reasons Mill Operators and Mine Operators used children in their enterprises past the beginning of the 20th century and in countries where the Child Labor laws don’t apply, they still do. It’s like the underlying reason for Boy Scouts, SIR and BARON Robert Baden-Powell,and his Wealthy Comrades “in arms” shocked by the high casualty rates for British Scouts, then enlisted “men” in the British Army, and their counterpart child-soldiers in every other army in the world, founded Boy Scouts as a means of perhaps not as many of the “lads” not being slaughtered in the war. Of course the idea of Organized Mass Murder being a grown-up “sport” to begin with never crossed their piggy little minds.
The Scions of the poor were not to be accorded privileges like Education beyond what was necessary, as a not much later conversation between Hitler and one of his doctors said, “efficient coolies for our industries and soldiers for our armies.”
I wonder if the socially retarded Corporate Sponsor animated sphincters of the Child Sailor are involved in the continued efforts to keep at least Third World children as slaves with no protections and no “right” to educations?
Some of the more vocal “benefactors” and supporters of Boy Scouts are. Don Blankenship, for instance. Sarah Palin, John McCain, any member of the Bush or Cheney families or any of their close associates.
They’re also actively involved in rolling back child protection laws, labor laws and public education.
