17-Year-old to Sails Around the World
By Zach Jones
August 17, 2009
Zac Sunderland, 17, used to dream about traveling all over the world. Now, he has made his dream come true. Last month, Zac became the first person under the age of 18 to circumnavigate, or sail around, the globe alone.
When he was little, Zac read a book called The Boy Who Sailed Around the World Alone by Robin Lee Graham. Robin was the first teen to sail around the world by himself, in 1965. Robin began his journey when he was 16. He finished almost five years later, when he was 21. Inspired, Zac decided he could do it faster.
Getting Started
Zac is no stranger to the sea. His family lived on a sailboat for nine years. “I learned to sail before I could ride a bike,” Zac said in an interview with Scholastic.
That’s why his parents were OK with his trip. But sailing and living on a boat solo takes a lot of work. So Zac made a plan with his family’s help.
First, he needed to buy a boat. He got jobs fixing boats in the summer. Zac saved enough money to buy a sturdy sailboat. He named it Intrepid, meaning courageous or bold.
Planning his route was the most important part of his preparations. He needed to keep his boat close to land. This would let him refuel and get help if he was in trouble. So Zac had to research port cities in countries along the ocean.
Fortunately, he had Robin’s route to guide him. Zac mapped a path close to the equator, the imaginary line that encircles the Earth, dividing it into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. He set sail on the Pacific Ocean from Marina del Rey, California, on June 14, 2008.
Zac’s first stops included Hawaii and the Marshall Islands. He met the President of the Marshall Islands as soon as he got off the boat in that country. Zac was off to a good start.
A World of Adventure
Next he traveled to Papua New Guinea, a country near Australia. Then he sailed south of the islands of Indonesia to the Indian Ocean. Later, Zac’s father flew out to meet him in South Africa. To get home, Zac sailed through the Panama Canal to Mexico and then on to the United States.
On July 16, 2009, Zac returned to California. He had completed his journey in only 13 months! Although that is a short time for sailing around the world, it was a long time to be apart from his family. He couldn’t wait to see his parents!
Sailing long distances in open water was challenging and often dangerous. Severe storms damaged Zac’s boat near the eastern coast of Africa. Luckily, Zac had enough training to repair the damage.
Seeing the world was exciting, but Zac found that staying inside a boat all day could get boring. To fight boredom, Zac read almost 70 books! He brought along his surfboard and surfed everywhere he stopped, and watched DVDs on his computer.
In addition to battling boredom, Zac also fought loneliness. Sometimes his route made him sail without touching land, completely alone, for weeks at a time. After his first two weeks of being on his own, he started to get restless.
How did he keep himself from feeling isolated? He wrote to his family in an online journal. Zac also found sailors like him at each stop, so he met lots of new friends. “I’ve got friends all over the world,” Zac told Scholastic.
He’s glad to be home now. But Zac is already itching for a new adventure. What’s next? Zac won’t say anything for sure, but he does admit he wants to climb Mount Everest. Still, graduating from high school is Zac’s biggest goal this year.
Source: Scholastic News Online
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