When I was fourteen my greatest accomplishment was being able to get to school in time for a zero hour class, and that's pretty much the expectations I've been building up for my own kids. Now I might have to scale my hopes and dreams up a notch or two, as fourteen year old Michael Perham of England sailed into Antigua today to become the youngest person ever to sail solo across the Atlantic, seven weeks after embarking from Gibraltar.
I'm not going to pick the nit of "is it really solo if your dad is tailing you in a second boat? Wouldn't that be more like, I don't know, tandem or something?" (oh, wait, I guess I did. I blame my husband, who said exactly that when I read him the story over coffee). I know bugger-all about world-class sailing, and this detail is proving maddeningly hard to clarify (can you clarify it? Let us know in the comments). Various sailing authorities are certainly treating Michael's trip as a solo voyage, so his father's shadow boat must be within their criteria for that (whatever that criteria is).
Michael's a sophisticated little dude--went and got himself a sponsorship from Skechers and a team of PR people, but his trip blog shows glimpses of a surprisingly normal kid. A surprisingly normal kid with his own 28-foot sailboat that sleeps eight, but never mind.
And what did Michael's mom, Heather Perham, think of her son's hair-brained scheme? Like her husband, Heather's nothing but supportive: "You cannot expect your kids not to go out. You don’t want them
staying at home, fixed to the computer. They need to be out there,
fulfilling their ambitions, otherwise life will pass them by. I just
wish more kids had the opportunity to do these things.” I think maybe Heather's the real hero in this story.
