Rescuers Find Teen Sailor Adrift in Indian Ocean

(June 11) -- Rescuers made radio contact today with a California teen feared lost at sea while trying to become the youngest person ever to sail solo around the world.

An Australian search and rescue team aboard an Airbus A330 spotted 16-year-old Abby Sunderland early today, huddled on her disabled yacht with its mast snapped off, some 2,000 miles offshore in the Indian Ocean.

Sunderland's parents feared the worst when they lost contact with her boat, "Wild Eyes," in stormy seas Thursday. Two emergency beacons were activated on the boat, her father Laurence Sunderland told AOL News. The activation of one of those beacons normally means the sailor is in the water or in a lifeboat.

But searchers aboard a Qantas Airways jetliner dispatched from Perth spotted the girl today, and her parents posted an elated message on her blog: "Abby is fine!"

"'Wild Eyes' is upright but her rigging is down. The weather conditions are abating," their message said. "Radio communication was made, and Abby reports that she is fine!"

"It was a very tense day with much anticipated news, and it was just a great outcome. We are very happy, we're very excited," Laurence Sunderland told NBC's "Today" show.

"It was a huge relief," his wife, Marianne, told NBC.

A French fishing vessel that happened to be in the area is being diverted to rescue the teen adventurer, and it should arrive within a day. "Where they will take her or how long it will take, we don't know," her parents wrote.

A family spokesman, William Bennett, held a middle-of-the-night news conference outside the Sunderland home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to announce the good news that the young sailor had been found. She's inside the boat and doing fine, with a space heater and two weeks' worth of food, he said.

Sunderland's close call reignites a debate over whether it's too dangerous for such young sailors to attempt round-the-world voyages. The organization that logs world circumnavigation attempts, the World Speed Sailing Record Council, no longer recognizes attempts by people younger than 18, because of safety concerns.

Defending his family's decision to allow their 16-year-old to try to sail around the world unassisted, Laurence Sunderland told NBC, "Do we say that no one should go out because you face hard knocks out there and sometimes people need to be rescued? I don't think so.

"Abigail's campaign unfortunately had a blow with the de-masting out there in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and she's proven herself on more than one occasion before now to deal with the adversities of the ocean," he said.

An Australian teen, Jessica Watson, completed a solo, unassisted round-the-world sail last month, just days before her 17th birthday. Her accomplishment hasn't gone down in the record books though, because of questions about the route she took.

Watson and her mother Julie, who have since become friends with the Sunderlands, were among those sending condolences when Abby was feared lost Thursday. "Our hearts go out to them," Julie Watson told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Abby Sunderland's brother Zac sailed solo around the world last year when he was 17.

Sunderland was more than halfway through her attempt when she hit 25-foot waves and winds of up to 60 knots on Thursday, according to her blog. She departed from Marina del Ray, Calif., on Jan. 23 and made it nonstop to South Africa, where she briefly came ashore for equipment repairs.

Her original goal was to sail the more than 24,000 miles nonstop. She departed Cape Town on May 21.