Youngest Sailor to Quest the World Alone

Abby Sunderland, 16, who cannot legally drive a car but is two months into a quest to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, on Tuesday will face by far her most daunting challenge yet: the rounding of Cape Horn.

While her friends back home in Southern California are savoring the pleasures of spring, Sunderland is pondering the treacherous passage between South America and Antarctica. With its mountainous, heaving seas and gale-force winds, Cape Horn is a mariners' graveyard, regarded as the Mt. Everest of the yachting universe.

Reached this week via email the budding adventurer from Thousand Oaks claimed she was not afraid.

"I understand very well how dangerous the ocean is, and especially where I am, and I sail carefully and never forget how fast things can turn bad out here," she responded, from a position west of southern Argentina and 700 miles from Cape Horn. "But fear would just get in the way. When things are going on, you don't have time to be scared about it; you have to just get your head around everything and deal with it."

If Sunderland is successful it will mark her first major milestone and the beginning of a long, easterly Southern Ocean traverse aboard a 40-foot yacht named Wild Eyes. Her voyage is controversial because of her age, but also because she'll be entering this notoriously inhospitable stretch as the Southern Hemisphere summer fades to autumn and savagely cold and stormy weather begins to set in.

"My biggest hope is that she has he maturity to wait out any nasty weather rather than push too hard for a record and risk getting into trouble," says Charlie Nobles, executive director of the American Sailing Assn.

Sunderland, who lives in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and embarked Jan. 23 from Marina del Rey, Calif., is one of two 16-year-old girls attempting nonstop, unassisted solo-circumnavigations, subsiding on freeze-dried food and desalinated water, while accepting only verbal or online guidance from home-based teams.

Australia's Jessica Watson began her odyssey from Sydney last October and rounded Cape Horn on Jan. 13. Soon afterward she endured 70-knot winds that threatened to capsize her 34-foot pink sloop.

Watson, now more than 18,000 miles along and crossing the Indian Ocean, is five months older than Sunderland, so Sunderland will become the youngest if she completes her trip within five months of Watson's ending date. (Abby's brother Zac, who completed his voyage at 17, briefly held the distinction as being the youngest sailor to solo-circumnavigate the planet but he made several stops. England's Mike Perham, who is slightly younger, stole that honor weeks later.)

Abby Sunderland's trip was delayed by about two months because of boat issues. Her parents assure, however, that she'll listen closely to weather experts and scurry to the nearest port if conditions become too harsh.

Meanwhile, the intrepid mariner is faring reasonably well. "I miss my family, and my dog, and my friends," she wrote, adding that thoughts often turn to her 5-year-old sister, Katherine. They share a bedroom and Katherine idolizes Abby, and has not slept in the room alone since Abby's departure.

Aside from bouts of loneliness, the eldest Sunderland daughter--one of seven children, with an eighth on the way--insists she's relishing the experience of a lifetime. "Everything around me is so amazing, just standing out on deck is exhilarating," she explained. "Every day there are new experiences, and they always seem better than the last; everything from squalls to gales, to just racing along."

Her parents, on the other hand, are besieged by the same type of angst as when Zac was braving gales and encountering ghost ships carrying suspected pirates.

"I have definitely been recruiting the people in my life who pray," said the mother, Marianne, in reference to a recent convergence of severe weather fronts that were falsely predicted to slam Wild Eyes. "But I am super-impressed with how Abby has handled everything, from the boat and its workings to the loneliness and monotony of everyday life at sea. But I'll be glad when she has rounded the Horn and can get back up into some calmer waters."

Abby might get to see her father before she rounds Cape Horn. Laurence Sunderland has flown to Argentina and hired a captain to take him out to try to photograph Wild Eyes before his daughter attempts the passage, but that might prove difficult as 20- to 25-knot winds and large swells are in the forecast through Tuesday.

After she gets around South America's tip, Abby will turn to the north and attempt to outrun a building Antarctic storm. Ultimately, she'll cross the southern Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, pass between Australia and New Zealand and cross the Pacific on a northeast course toward home.

That's a lot of water to cover and, given her late start, perhaps a lot of icebergs to dodge as well.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Associated Press and "The Pacific" Interview

Assigning a reporter to ask other people's questions in an interview is a bit like asking a taxi driver to turn the wheel over to a passenger.

But when the AP gathered questions via Facebook last week for me to ask of Dr. Sidney Phillips, it turned out to be an interesting change of pace — and a reminder that curiosity, whether that of a reporter or news consumer, is the basis of journalism.

Those interested in the veteran's perspective on war and more included students at a preparatory school in Georgia, a woman whose father was a Marine in the Pacific and an Egyptian who had served in his country's army and had once lived in the United States.

The questions sent to AP were thoughtful and, when I put them to Dr. Phillips, drew interesting and sometimes very personal answers. When asked what helped keep Phillips going and on mission throughout World War II, the veteran cited the trust and support of his fellow Marines. Then he added colorful examples of how that translated.

"Those guys would say, 'Phillips, you're so dumb you couldn't pour urine out of a boot with directions on the heel,' " he recalled in response to a question that Melanie York Shepherd submitted on behalf of a class at the Savannah Christian Preparatory School. "That meant they liked you. ... When shelling would get unbelievable, there's one guy that would say, 'Everybody stay calm. Don't lose your head and go to pieces.' Marines are a different group of people."

Phillips, who is played in HBO's miniseries by Ashton Holmes, was 17 when he enlisted the day after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He fought on Guadalcanal and joined in the invasion of another island in the Pacific theater, New Britain.

On his return to Mobile, Ala., he became a physician and raised three children with his wife, Mary, who died in 2000.

Facebook user Sharol Olson Ulrich, whose father landed on Guadalcanal, asked if Phillips still considers himself a Marine.

"Oh, absolutely," he said. "Once a Marine, always a Marine."

"The Pacific" debuted March 14, with new episodes airing at 9 p.m. EDT on Sundays through May 16.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Moscow Bomb

The head of Russia's main security agency says Caucasus rebels are believed to have carried out two sucide bombings on Moscow's subway system that killed 36 people.
Officials say two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on trains as the subway was packed with rush-hour passengers Monday morning.
In a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, the head of the Federal Security Service said preliminary investigation points to terrorists connected to the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya.
Alexander Bortnikov said the assessment was based on fragments of the bombers' bodies. He did not elaborate.

Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow's subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 38, the city's mayor and other officials said.
Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Svetlana Chumikova said 23 people were killed in an explosion shortly before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's main successor agency.
A second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later. Chumikova said at least 12 were dead there. The ministry later said 38 people were injured.
"I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming," said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was waiting on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.
"I saw a dead person for the first time in my life," said 19-year-old Valtin Popov, who also was standing on the opposite platform.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.
"The first data that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers," Luzhkov told reporters at the Park Kultury site.
The blasts practically paralyzed movement in the city center as emergency vehicles sped to the stations.
In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosive and set it off as the train's doors opened, said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body. The woman has not been identified, he told reporters.
A woman who sells newspapers outside the Lubyanka station, Ludmila Famokatova, said there appeared to be no panic, but that many of the people who streamed out were distraught.
"One man was weeping, crossing himself, saying 'thank God I survived'," she said.
The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a city subway station, killing 10 people.
Responsibility for that blast was claimed by Chechen rebels and suspicion in Monday's explosions is likely to focus on them and other separatist groups in the restive North Caucasus region.
Russian police have killed several Islamic militant leaders in the North Caucasus recently, including one last week in the Kabardino-Balkariya region. The killing of Anzor Astemirov was mourned by contributors to two al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites.
The killings have raised fears of retaliatory strikes by the militants.
In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov warned in an interview on a rebel-affiliated Website that "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia ... the war is coming to their cities."
Umarov also claimed his fighters were responsible for the November bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train that killed 26 people en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
The Moscow subway system is one of the world's busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.
Helicopters hovered over the Park Kultury station area, which is near the renowned Gorky Park.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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China Miners Trapped

Rescuers raced Monday to free 153 coal miners trapped by a flood that may have started when workers digging a new mine in northern China accidentally broke into a network of old, water-filled shafts.
Such derelict tunnels are posing new risks to miners across China even as the country ramps up safety in its notoriously hazardous mines, where accidents kill thousands each year.
Rescuers raced to pump water from the Wangjialing coal mine in north China's Shanxi province that started flooding Sunday afternoon, officials said. The state-owned mine about 400 miles (650 kilometers) southwest of Beijing was under construction and had been scheduled to start production later this year, the China Daily newspaper reported.
The accident could be one of the worst mining disasters in recent years if rescue efforts fail and would set back marked improvements in mining safety.
Some 261 workers were inside the mine when it flooded, and 108 escaped or were rescued, China's State Administration of Work Safety said in a statement on its Web site early Monday.
At the Wangjialing mine, located at the end of a long winding mountain road, rescue workers strapped metal pipes and other parts of a pump onto a metal trolley and pushed it along rail tracks into the entrance, where it was lowered into the shaft.
About 30 people, many of them miners, stood quietly behind the police cordon in a light drizzle watching the rescuers work.
Fan Leisheng, one of the miners who escaped, described the sudden rush of water that tore through the mine.
"It looked like a tidal wave and I was so scared," Fan told China Central Television. "I immediately ran away and looked back to see some others hanging behind. I shouted at them to get out. It was unbelievable because I got out from 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) underground."
Pipes and pumping equipment were rushed to the site and water was being pumped out of the mine, Liu Dezheng, a chief engineer with the work safety bureau in Shanxi, said during a televised news conference Monday.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that President Hu Jintao ordered local authorities to "spare no effort" in saving the trapped workers.
Officials have yet to declare the cause of the accident but experts said it was likely that workers broke into the old shafts or pits of derelict mines that had filled with water.
"It could be that they broke into old workings, works that were not properly mapped out," said David Feickert, a coal mine safety adviser to the Chinese government. "That's a common problem with flooding, and Shanxi is an area where they have very extensive mining, a lot of old mines."
Though China's mining industry is still the world's deadliest, it has dramatically improved its safety record over the last seven years, said Feickert, who is based in Wanganui, New Zealand and Beijing.
Accidents killed 2,631 coal miners last year, less than half the 6,995 deaths in 2002, the most dangerous year on record, according to the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety. That means on average more than seven miners die every day, down from 19.1 in 2002.
The decline in deaths comes amid a ramping up in the mining of coal, which fuels about 70 percent of China's voracious energy needs.
Much of the safety improvement has come from shutting down smaller, labor-intensive operators or forcing them into mergers with better-funded state companies.
Lu Jianzhang, a former researcher with the China Coal Research Institute in Beijing, also said that he suspected old mine shafts were to blame. If that were the case, it could brighten the prospects of finding survivors, he said.
"Since the amount of the water is limited and runs out after the initial flood, there is still probably hope for miners' survival," Lu said.
Wangjialing's parent company, Huajin Coking Coal Co., is co-owned by China's second-largest coal mining company, the China National Coal Group Corp., with the remaining 50 percent stake owned by the Shanxi Coking Coal Group Co., another major miner.
The worst accidents in recent years include a coal mine flood in eastern Shandong province in August 2007 that left 172 miners dead and a mine blast in northeastern Liaoning province in February 2005 that killed 214 miners.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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World Agenda: why can't international warships stop the Somali pirates?

It seems to matter little how many of the world’s warships gather in the Gulf of Aden to deter acts of piracy. The pirates still manage to ply their trade and in recent weeks there has been a spike in ship hijackings, including yesterday’s capture of a British-owned vessel.
How can it be that with so much focus now on countering the pirates, they remain a significant threat to international shipping? There have been more than 40 attacks since the beginning of the year, ten of which were successful.
With 1.1 million square miles of water to cover just in the Gulf of Aden alone, the international warships operating in the area have never been able to guarantee safe passage for the thousands of ships that transit the routes. They rely, instead, on the merchant seamen on board the vessels sticking to certain rules if they wish to complete their journey without being commandeered. To make ships' voyages still more dangerous, there is now evidence some of the pirates are switching their tactics and hunting in the Indian Ocean.
On any day, there are between 15 and 20 warships on counter-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden from different navies that range from the United States and Britain to Russia, China and India. To underline the concerns that piracy have raised, there are three separate organisations involved - the US-led Combined Task Force 151, Nato and the European Union with Operation Atalanta. Countries such as Russia and China are not part of these operations, but apparently there is good communication between all the warships.
To make their job slightly easier, all merchant ships are advised to use the special international transit corridors - one going east, the other, west - across the Gulf of Aden where the foreign warships can then concentrate their efforts. There have been successes. Of the 40 attacks this year, ten were foiled by the intervention of one or more of the warships. A military helicopter hovering over the hijack-area is often more than enough to send the pirates fleeing.
The EU naval force which currently does not include a Royal Navy warship has succeeded in detaining 16 pirates so far this year, and the combined number of arrests carried out by all the foreign ships is more than 100 since January 1. The EU has an arrangement with Kenya for arrested pirates to be dealt with through their judicial system, and the first trial is due to take place this month.
The transit channels, however, are 500 miles long and, even within these more confined areas, it is still not possible for the warships to be everywhere. The pirates, operating in small boats that provide no reflecting radar blips, have adapted their methods, and have become more heavily armed to present to targeted vessel crews a significant threat to their lives.
The counter-piracy maritime organisations urge the merchant crews to take a number of steps to deter pirates. These include putting barbed wire around their vessels to make boarding more difficult and to ensure that they have crew members manning the hoses. Delay is important. If the crews can hold off the pirates for any length of time, the chances are that the nearest warship can get within helicopter reach of the incident and send the pirates packing.
The merchant ship-owners are also recommended to keep their vessels 600 miles away from Somalia’s eastern seaboard from where most of the pirates emerge. Not all the merchant ships, however, conform to the rules. Some fail to use the transit routes, and others give scant attention to installing anti-piracy defences.
Why the spike in attacks now? There appear to be two reasons. First, the monsoon period is over and, second, the pirates are apparently low in stocks of hijacked vessels and need more to maintain their income and to sustain the lifestyle they have enjoyed as a result of the huge ransoms paid by shipowners.
“Ultimately, this problem is not going to be resolved at sea but on land [by the authorities in Somalia], but meanwhile the pirates are continuing to thwart all the efforts being made by foreign navies to stop them,” one military source said.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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