Zac Sunderland, the youngest sailor to go around the globe!

Zac Sunderland 17, became the youngest sailor to go around the globe. Zac Sunderland has just completed a 13-month journey around the world with a 36-foot yacht Intrepid. What is amazing about his journey is that he did it alone. He is the youngest person to accomplish this kind of feat.

Zac Sunderland, 17, became the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe Thursday, completing his 13-month journey in Marina del Rey

Hundreds had gathered to meet the 17 years old Zac Sunderland from Thousand Oaks who, many are saying:

“he left as a boy and came back as a man,”

His father Laurence Sunderland also said that:

“He left thinking that he knew a lot about life, and the difference now is, he does. You look into his eyes; he’s very much a deep thinker now. He tries to anticipate things more so now, before they happen.”

Zac Sunderland, who left Marina del Rey 13 months ago with a bold ambition to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, returned to complete that quest today at 10:30 a.m.

Sunderland, 17, who was greeted offshore and escorted in by an armada of well-wishers aboard dozens of sailboats and fancy yachts, cleared the breakwater beneath a clearing sky and stepped ashore at Fisherman’s Village in bright sunshine.

Sunderland, 17, who departed Marina del Rey when he was 16 on June 14, 2008, becomes the youngest person to have sailed alone around the world — and the first to do it before turning 18.
He beat a record held by Australia’s Jesse Martin, who was 18 when he finished his voyage in 1999.

After departing on a westerly course, he crossed three oceans and five seas, and crossed the equator twice, covering more than 25,000 miles. He endured a pirate scare, a broken boom, broken tiller, broken forestay rigging, a broken bulkhead, and he was swamped and almost washed overboard by a rogue wave off Grenada.

He returns to a modest, bustling house in Thousand Oaks, which he will resume sharing with six younger brothers and sisters. Out of respect, his parents did not give his room to any of his siblings. Instead, they used it to store T-shirts and other memorabilia for sale on his website.