UPDATE

A 16-year-old girl trying to sail solo around the world who was missing in the Indian Ocean some 2,000 miles east of Madagascar has been found by a search plane and is in good condition, news agencies reported on Friday.

The girl, Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks, Calif., departed alone Jan. 23 in her sailboat Wild Eyes. On Thursday, she lost satellite phone contact with her family and set off emergency beacons, triggering a rescue effort by United States, Australian and French authorities. Ms. Sunderland was trying to break the record for the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe, a title held briefly by her older brother Zac, who completed his sail last year at 17.

William Bennett, , a spokesman for Ms. Sunderland’s parents, Marianne and Laurence Sunderland, was quoted Friday as saying that the search plane made contact with her by radio and that her boat was upright and she had plenty of food. He added that a fishing vessel was expected to reach the site in about 40 hours , according to the reports.

Earlier, her parents said they last spoke with their daughter at about 4 a.m. Thursday, when Ms. Sunderland was reporting swells of 30 feet.

“She was having trouble with the engine and had taken on some water but she felt upbeat,” Mr. Pinkston said. An hour later the family was alerted that two G.P.S. emergency beacons had been activated, one on the boat and one on Ms. Sunderland’s survival suit.

The two nearest ships — the fishing boat and a French naval vessel — were headed toward the location of Ms. Sunderland’s emergency beacons.

In her last blog post published on Wednesday, Ms. Sunderland reported huge seas and a torn sail.

“The wind is beginning to pick up,” she wrote. “It is back up to 20 knots and I am expecting that by midnight tonight I could have 35-50 knots with gusts to 60 so I am off to sleep before it really picks up.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Jessica Watson’s family say their thoughts and prayers are with a solo teenage sailor missing in mountainous seas in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

A multi-national search and rescue operation has been launched after emergency beacons onboard 16-year-old Abby Sunderland’s boat were triggered when the young American adventurer ran into huge waves hundreds of kilometres from land early this morning.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) says a Qantas Airbus is heading to the search zone, which is about 3,600 kilometres from the WA coast.

AMSA spokeswoman Carly Lusk says conditions in the search area are poor, with 90 kilometre per hour winds and a six-metre swell.

She says the signals coming from the two beacons Sunderland has activated – one attached to her body and another attached to her boat – suggest she is still in the boat.

She says the crew on board the Qantas jet hope to contact Sunderland by VHF radio once they reach the search area.

“We’ve got two Qantas flight crews on board, as well as 11 trained air observers from the Western Australian fire emergency services and two Fremantle water police officers,” she said.

Jessica Watson’s mother Julie Watson says her daughter struck up a friendship with Abby Sunderland during her recently completed round-the-world trip.

“Our whole hearts and feelings and prayers go out to her family and whole support team, as well as Abby,” she said.

“They’ve been communicating and we’ve been communicating with the family as well, so we heard from them this morning, and they are just in the same situation as everyone else, just waiting for information.”

She says Jessica knows exactly what is going on.

“Jessica says Abby will be very busy doing all the things she needs to do under those circumstances,” she said.

“We had a very similar situation [with Jessica] where the EPIRB went off.”

Australian, US and French search and rescue authorities are coordinating several ships in the area, but the nearest ship was more than 500 kilometres away from the search area this morning and is not expected to reach the rescue zone until about midday tomorrow.

Sunderland’s father Laurence told ABC Local Radio he last spoke to his daughter during the night (Australian time), but lost contact with her during a satellite phone call.

“She had quite a boisterous night at 60 knots, she was knocked down three times and radar was ripped off the boat, and she had an engine issue,” he said.

“She definitely had her cage rattled last night, but after dealing with the engine issue and getting things up and running, everything seemed to be fine.

“We initially thought that the signal was sent automatically from her water-activated EPIRB and that it had been activated during one of her knockdowns.

“As we pulled the paperwork from her EPIRB registration, we learned that the signal had come from her manually-activated EPIRB.

“We were referred to Australian Search and Rescue and while we were on the phone with them another signal came in from her handheld PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). Her water-activated EPIRB has not been activated so we are hopeful that the boat is still upright.”

Mr Sunderland said his daughter’s yacht may have flipped.

“If indeed the boat is upside down we’re hoping that the keel is actually off the boat and giving the boat a positive flotation factor and that she’s inside the bubble, safe,” he said.

Mr Sunderland expressed his thanks for the Australian search and rescue effort.

Well-equipped

Mr Sunderland said he was still hopeful for his daughter’s safety.

“Abby has all of the equipment on board to survive a crisis situation like this,” he said.

“She has a dry suit, survival suit, life raft, and ditch bag with emergency supplies. If she can keep warm and hang on, help will be there as soon as possible.”

Sunderland began her voyage in her yacht Wild Eyes in January, just months before Jessica Watson completed her around-the-world journey. Watson was also 16 when she set sail, five months older than Sunderland.

Sunderland set sail amid criticism from some in the sailing community that her itinerary was too risky because it would place her in the Indian Ocean during the turbulent Southern Hemisphere winter.

Sunderland’s older brother Zac completed his own around the world sailing voyage last year. He arrived back in California last July to a hero’s welcome at the end of his 13-month voyage.

Zac Sunderland had been 16 when he set out on the journey, turning 17 in November 2008 before arriving home eight months later.

Watson’s journey also began amid a flurry of criticism with many saying she was too young to cope with an around the world journey.

However she completed her journey last month, arriving in Sydney to a hero’s welcome met by the Prime Minister, the Premier of New South Wales and thousands of well-wishers.

Sphere: Related Content