It is almost certainly a sign of the times that all sorts of foul is being cried, now that 16-year-old Abby Sunderland has been found and rescued from the Indian Ocean.
The California teenager set sail on her 40-foot vessel Wild Eyes in January, hoping to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, unassisted and non-stop. Early into her journey, her hopes of achieving non-stop were dashed when she had to land in Mexico and later Cape Town, South Africa for repairs to her boat, but she made the decision to press on anyway, follow through with her trip.
Everything was flowing along nicely until last week, when a rogue wave knocked out her mast and satellite communication thousands of miles from land. She had no choice but activate her emergency beacon, and was discovered and rescued by a French fishing vessel within 48 hours, her own boat abandoned.
I had no idea who this girl was until last week, when she was feared lost at sea. I mentioned her predicament in a previous post on this blog as part of a larger point I was making about myself: about determination, about marshaling emotional high seas. Succeed or fail, Abby Sunderland, and people like her, are to be commended and should be impervious to unfair scrutiny. Not immune or above, perhaps, but impervious.
The parents of Abby Sunderland, whose older brother Zac briefly held the much sought-after record last year (until it was broken by an even younger Australian adventurer), were already under fire for allowing their daughter, barely old enough to legally drive a car, to undertake the long, treacherous journey by herself, when it was revealed early this week that they had been in talks with a production company for a possible reality show chronicling their family's adventures.
This really got fingers pointing. The entire thing smacked of last October's 'Balloon Boy' incident, when Richard and Myumi Heene were called out for staging an elaborate hoax involving their youngest son Falcon, in hopes of landing a reality show deal. And on the surface at least, such a conspiracy would make sense: Wunderkind Abby is plucked from the perilous ocean, just in the nick of time. Et voilà! Instant name recognition, dialogue and intrigue! Sit back, and watch the offers pour in!
In response to such accusations, the family has recoiled, disavowing any current 'deals' - television, book or otherwise - and plans for any in the future.
Admirable, but hardly necessary, in my opinion. The most pencil-thin scratching at the surface will reveal this is not even remotely the same situation as Balloon Boy. Little Falcon Heene was just an unwitting pawn in his talentless father's sad gambit for 15 minutes of fame. Abby Sunderland, on the other hand, is obviously a skilled sailor. Whether it was some kind of publicity stunt or turned into one after the near-tragedy (and neither scenario really seems to be the case), this young lady still came close to sailing around the world by herself, and probably will at some point in the future. There is something about her abilities, and her brother's, and the parents that raised them, that is - at the very least - interesting, and undeniably inspiring.
At least they bring something to the table.
And by that reckoning (once you've come to terms with the fact that the reality television phenomenon is probably not going away anytime soon, of course) the Sunderlands are more deserving of TV and book deals than a lot of established reality celebs.
More deserving than the entire cast of Jersey Shore combined.
