SoCal teen sets sail in attempt to circumnavigate globe

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.--A Southern California teen is looking to have the most impressive “what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation” essay ever.

On a weekend when most his age are settling into summer break, 16-year-old Zac Sunderland of Thousand Oaks has set sail solo on what he hopes is a voyage around the world.

Sunderland took off from Marina Del Rey at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon in his 36-foot sailboat “Intrepid.”

A crowd of about 200 and a Coast Guard helicopter saw him off.

“There was a stiff breeze and after Zac got settled was cruising comfortably,” Sunderland’s mother Marianne Sunderland wrote in a post on his Web site, https://www.zacsunderland.com. “He has a lot to do in the next days; stowing, organizing and finding everything that was stowed and organized for him!”

If he completes the trip in time Sunderland would become the youngest to circumnavigate the globe solo.

According to Guinness World Records, the youngest to pull of the feat is Australian David Dicks, who circled the globe at 18 in 1996.

Sunderland’s plan, which will inevitably go through many changes, is to do it in 11 months and return to California in April of 2009 when he’s 17.

The oldest of seven children, Sunderland is a lifelong sailor from a long line of yachtsmen--his Web site says his first home was a 55-foot Tradewind sailboat.

He was scheduled to leave late last month, but a broken gearbox seal forced the replacement of the boat’s engine.