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

Being at sea is like watching the whole world in high-definition.

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

Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.

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.

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

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.