<p>I have nothing against someone who wants to pursue a dream of sailing around the world solo. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to be the youngest ever. These are fools’ records when it comes to extremely dangerous activities. And they impact others because rescue efforts will have to be coordinated – at great risk and expense to those people. So thinking that she is attempting this in some vacuum misses the point. When (if) she sets her record, that will challenge some other, obviously younger, sailor to try to best it. At some point you have to say “stop” and I think that point has been passed.</p>
<p>As noted above, with the first story, the parents weren’t in a trailing vessel a few hundred meters away…they were shopping a reality show thousands of miles away. These record attempts are all about bad parenting. It’s good to give your kid independence. It’s great when kids seek out challenges and adventures. But there’s actually no call to suspend sanity in the process.</p>