Anchor's Away

When I was in my early 20s, my dad, an avid sailor, gave me a book called Maiden Voyage, a true story about an 18-year-old New York City girl who set out in May of 1985 to become the first American woman and youngest person to ever sail around the world alone.

Tania Aebi, the author and subject of the memoir, was working as a bike courier at the time and her life was proving more directionless than her father would have liked, so he offered her the boat and challenged her to take the trip.

The book provides a first-hand account of a coming-of-age experience if ever there was one, including terrifying storms at sea, profound moments of self-doubt and reflections on Aebi’s broken family and her future. Geez, I thought, as I read the book. There I was working as an executive assistant while Aebi sailed the world singlehandedly.

Now, here it is 2009 and several even younger teenaged girls around the world have been making headlines for their efforts to raise anchor and set out to circumnavigate the globe. In the Netherlands, 13-year-old Laura Dekker is awaiting a court decision next week on whether she will be able to undertake her journey. Just last week, Australian Jessica Watson, 16, set sail from Sydney for the 23,000-mile trek around the world.

Of course, many are wondering whether these are appropriate ages to be sailing around the world. The parents in both cases support their daughter’s choice, which in the Netherlands at least led to authorities questioning Dekker’s parents’ judgment so much that she is temporarily being held by the state. And then there's the issue of money. Certainly these young teens are more likely to get sponsorship deals because of their young age.

"To be honest," the father of 17-year-old Mike Perham, who earned the World Record for being the youngest person to sail the globe solo earlier this year, told CNN, "he probably wouldn't have been able to sail around the world if he had been 18 or 23. The sponsorship that he received was partly because the attraction was his age."

I can’t help but feel that these sailing teens are really just symptomatic of an increasing pressure to achieve, achieve, achieve at a young age. Now it’s not enough to sail the globe — you’ve got to do it before your braces come off. Sure, Tania's dad was worried about his daughter's lack of ambition, but she had at least finished high school. Some of these kids probably haven't even had their first kiss yet.

Seems to me that if we’re living longer these days, why can’t we be putting off some of our grander ambitions? Why not extend the exquisitely fleeting experience of just being a kid? That's an experience you only get to have once.

Photo courtesy of Mr. Usaji via Flickr.