But Mom, he got to sail around the world!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sail_kid_parents_set_cour_for_tv_crGRuKCVBcBCM5v3s23ULK


Here's a dose of reality.

The father of teen sailor Abby Sunderland told The Post yesterday that he's broke and had signed a contract to do a reality show, "Adventures in Sunderland," about his family of daredevil kids weeks after she set off on her doomed and dangerous solo sail around the globe.

Laurence Sunderland, a sailing instructor who lives in the middle-class Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks with his pregnant wife and seven kids, opened their home to film crews four months ago.

"The show might be about family, it might be about Abigail's trip. It's something that was shopped around," he said.

 

If you're not exploiting your misadventures at sea as part of a reality show to help get your dad out of hock, you're not living. You're just existing.

 

That's just perfect.

 

Okay. If they couldn't actually afford to do this, whether on their own or through sponsorships or even a loan, or whatever, they shouldn't have done it. Agreed.

And the optics of this being fodder for a reality show are certainly not good. I loathe reality shows but, even more, I fucking hate parents who pimp out their kids just so the parents can be rich and/or famous.

This could be worse than Balloon Boy. At least Balloon Boy's father didn't actually send the kid up in the balloon. That said, I still admire Abby for having the knowledge and the courage that she appears to have. I think that, in a way, can remain somewhat separate from her father's seeming grasps at fame-whoredom.

 

She seems like a great girl. Misguided, but great.

And it looks like Spnited might get his request. I have no proof, but if I was a DA, I would start looking into charging the parents.

 

They've only spent $6500 so far. [/BTE and Chris Jones]

 

No, they got it all wrong.

She only set off around the world because its in her DNA. She was a caged bird, needing to be unleashed. It was never about anything else.

The Sunderlands are different than you and I. She's like Bill Gates and Magellan, all rolled into one.

 

Next news to break: The father rigged the mast to fail, giving maximum exposure to the reality show.

 

If authorities seek to charge the family with the cost of the rescue, that's fine by me.

But it may set an odd precedent. Unless paying to be rescued is standard operating procedure among people who sail or hike or climb mountains or ski or do other things that may involve calling Park Rangers or Ski Patrols or Coast Guard personnel or other organizations whose purpose is to do these things.

She's better than Magellan. Idiot lost almost all his crew -- including himself.

 

Remember the 7-year old who wanted to fly around the world?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/1996/04/13/MN35572.DTL

 

They've already wished her dead. No big surprise they want to inflict financial harm on the family.