An all out rescue is heading toward the sailboat of Abby Sunderland, 16, as she made various distress calls while on her attempt to sail, alone, around the world. The hard part, however, is the fact that a helicopter does not have the fuel capacity to fly round trip and a boat would take two days. Grindtv.com reports that, "a crew aboard an airplane from Australia hopes to arrive at the position issued via her EPIRB satellite positioning device at daybreak (she's 11 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time)," and also reported that "It stated that the EPIRB unit issuing a signal was one that has to be activated manually. Presumably this is the unit attached to her survival suit. Another signal had come from a hand-held Personal Locator Beacon, or PLB. The water-activated EPIRB unit did not activate, which might mean her 40-foot vessel, Wild Eyes, is afloat and upright."
Sunderland's family issued a statement through their website saying, ""Abby has all of the equipment on board to survive a crisis situation like this. She has a dry suit, survival suit, life raft, and ditch bag with emergency supplies. If she can keep warm and hang on, help will be there as soon as possible."
Aircraft and boats are on their way. Hopefully it'll be a successful rescue.