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Young sailors around the world are trying to break records. Thirteen-year-old Laura Dekker in the Netherlands is currently fighting the courts to set sail. And Australia’s Jessica Watson, 16, is preparing for a September launch aboard a 34-foot boat named Pink Lady.

But Abigail Sunderland from Southern California may have the most motivation. The 15-year-old from Thousand Oaks plans to take down her brother Zac’s record of being the youngest to sail around the world solo – and she wants to one-up him in another way, too.

“I’m going to do it without stopping,” Abby said last month as her family announced her plans to begin the 24,500-mile voyage in November, just weeks after she turns 16.

Along with the full support of her parents, Abby has older brother Zac in her corner. In mid-July, Zac (then 17) completed his global odyssey, which lasted 13 months aboard a 36-foot Islander sailboat.

Abby, who hopes to complete her nonstop excursion in about six months, will travel more luxuriously, aboard a 40-foot Open-class boat outfitted for circumnavigations currently named Ocean Warrior.

That seems an appropriate name for what she has planned: an adventure full of excitement but also possible trouble — her journey will require negotiating the notorious Cape Horn, among other treacherous passages.

She’s landed Shoe City as a major sponsor who will help foot the bill for the estimated $350,000 adventure. The Sunderlands are confident other sponsors will come aboard because of the worldwide publicity Zac’s campaign generated.

Laurence Sunderland, a shipwright who runs a yacht management company, and wife Marianne were strongly criticized by some for allowing their oldest son to go off on such a potentially dangerous trip. But the couple’s seven children have grown up on boats and taken long yacht cruises together and Zac proved to be a very capable sailor. Abby, they say, is similarly accomplished.

Zac sailed west, across the Pacific, but Abby has charted a course south, past Central and South America, then east around Cape Horn, past South Africa, across the Indian Ocean, past Australia and then east across the Pacific back to California.

The Ventura County Star reported Abby’s route would take her across the “Roaring Forties” in the southern Indian Ocean, one of the most forbidding stretches of the sea in the world. Because there is no land mass to slow sailors down, the prevailing westerly winds are especially strong there, and the storms can be unforgiving.

Abby said her preparation currently daily visits to the gym to get in top physical shape for the journey. She’s confident she can make it safely around the world while proving that anything Zac can do, she can do better.

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