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

One day that same year, I told my dad that someday, I would sail around the world alone.

Fewer people have successfully solo-circumnavigated the globe than have journeyed into space.

Wild Eyes was built for speed and I was flying down walls of water twenty and thirty feet high.

The seriousness of my situation started to sink in, and again I fought panic. I pushed it down, but it was harder this time, like my insides were an open can of shaken soda and I was trying to keep it from bubbling up out of the top.

On June 10, the worst storm in the series swept across the middle of the Indian Ocean and Wild Eyes was directly in its path.

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