The winds were blowing from west to east, pushing Abby's boat toward the rocks as Abby struggled with the autopilots below. If Wild Eyes reached those islands, she wouldn't run aground, keel in the sand. She would be smashed into pieces.

The swells were amazing! As big as three-story apartment buildings!

I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.

On October 19, 2009, my sixteenth birthday, Wild Eyes officially became mine! Now it was really happening.

I'm one-hundred-fifty miles off Cape Horn, both autopilots are broken, and my boat is drifting toward one of the nastiest chunks of ocean on the face of the earth.

In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.

I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.