Hi Greg,

...A cute young American thang - from SoCal, no less - trapped on her own little Apollo 13 in the trackless expanse of the Southern Ocean whilst living her lifelong dream... Tantalizingly out of touch after she'd been blogging almost hourly from virtually the dark side of the moon. SO much sexier than waiting around to find out whether 29 West Virginia coal miners make it out alive, for example... All would agree, this has been one of the best seasons we've seen of SURVIVOR, so far, and Abby has become the sailing world's new Parvati...

Perhaps Team Sunderland should form an alliance with Richard "Science Detective" Heene, the father of Balloon Boy could serve as the weather router for Abby's next reality show sailing stunt... I'd suggest Kate Gosselin to host the show, perfect...

Unbelievable, that this crowd has now become the face of sailing to the public at large... I'm sure many of you have had the same experience as I have of late, EVERYONE who knows I'm a sailor has been asking me for my take on this debacle... These people have become an embarrassment to our sport, at least they have finally been shamed into taking down the website that solicited donations for the salvage of WILD EYES, still boggles the mind that they initially managed to raise thousands of dollars from gullible enablers to permit Abby to continue to live her Dream... I think I'd sooner donate to the next 12-year old who wants to become the youngest to summit Everest:

http://www.savewildeyes.com/

As one who does a fair amount of singlehanding, I'm now worried that this ill-conceived stunt may prove to be the final straw, and we may begin to see increasing calls from around the world for some sort of greater regulations/restrictions/insurance requirements, etc., not unlike the sort of draconian regulations the Kiwis attempted to place on cruisers departing from NZ a decade or so ago. This rescue has generated such a massive amount of attention to the issue of cost of rescue, wouldn't surprise me at all if someone like the Australians attempt to act upon it in some way... If they do, I would hope that they would make the distinction between those of us who are voyaging for pleasure on our own means, and the sponsored stunts in quest of fame and fortune like this latest from the Sunderland-Salahis...

best regards,

Jon