The age of consent

Children, the media and adventure have been colliding in our collective conscious as of late. Two stories that will forever be linked in my mind are an odd pairing. Not the usual Tom and Jerry of connections, but two tales that have captured the world’s attention. One is a fraud and one is fraught with danger. I am of course referring to Balloon Boy and Jessica Watson. Balloon Boy is of course the family in the States who faked the media circus of the year. No, he was never in the balloon – based upon the dad’s performance in the launch video where he kicks the wooden supports and drops an F-Bomb for authenticity his realistic hopes of getting a TV show were as full of hot air as the balloon.

So as the kid projectile vomited between televised confessions the whole tale unraveled and the mainstream media switched to its default setting of perverse fascination at the truly barely-newsworthy. Racing neck and Neck with Jon & Kate Neglect 8 it has become yet another high watermark in the ever overflowing tide of exploited children whose downfall is now somehow fodder for our own entertainment.

Jessica Watson is the 16 year old Australian girl who just embarked upon a solo, unassisted, unsupported, continuous sail around the world. If she completes the journey she will be the youngest person to do it – beating the current record by a couple of years. The opinions on Jessica’s trip have been as diverse as the people who have weighed in. Media in Aussie have asked average Joe’s on the street – with the vast majority of elderly woman emphatically inferring that her folks should have their heads examined. Adolescents have leapt to her defense reminding us that they are able to navigate Twitter far better then us and are totally trustworthy with their parents car.

Yahcties have been split – there are those, such as sailors who have actually done the trip, who have been scathing in their criticism of her voyage. They point the finger at overly ambitious parents who are a sicko combination of stage parents and soccer moms. They say that they are allowing their daughter to risk her life all in the name of fame and fortune – and to be honest they have a point there. If this was truly for the adventure and not the notoriety of achieving the ‘youngest ever’ goal then why not wait till she has say, graduated high-school.

There have been some in the sea-set who have defended her. In fact the current record holder has urged her on – but not without his own tales of caution. Some say that she should be allowed to do whatever she wants. And I too struggle to stifle her dream – one of joys of the outdoors is the anarchy of it all. There are no rules to these games, no minimum or maximum age. What draws many, including me to the outdoor arena is the lack of rules and regulations.

So what do I think? I am not a yachtsman; I know little of the sea or sailing especially when it comes to the deep blue. But I do know a lot about mountaineering and of solo adventure. So for my own benefit I change this scenario in my mind into solo mountaineering terms. It would be easy to compare sailing around the world solo to say climbing Mt. Everest. I disagree – Everest is too busy. Jessica is climbing a peak more like K2, or Kangchenjunga these peaks are fractionally lower, all but deserted and every bit as hard, if not harder then Everest. What would people say if a young climber, still unable to vote, drive on their own, buy a beer in the pub or stay out late without checking in decided to solo Kangchenjunga? This massive, isolated peak sees few visits every year and a solo climber could expect to see no one else as they ascended the peak. That sort of guile, boldness and daring would be applauded by the worlds climbing media if the climber in question was one of only a handful of guru climbers who would even think to partake in the trip. If a teenager decided to give it a go, they would receive the same reaction from climbers that Jessica is facing from (most) sailors and they most definitely wouldn’t be the darlings of the media. Likely this person would be viewed as naive by the kind and foolish by the honest.

I guess for me the question comes with regards to experience. Sailing solo all the way around should be the crowning achievement of a lifetime spent on the high seas – this isn’t where you start your seafaring journey. Maybe she grew up in a sailing family, maybe she has an aptitude for all things boatish – I don’t know. What I do know is that in her first attempt a couple of months ago she broadsided a 50,000 ton cargo ship on her FIRST NIGHT at sea and was lucky to survive. She blamed the accident on an equipment malfunction and that, under pressure from an interviewer, she had fallen asleep. This doesn’t bode well for young Jessica.

So what of the naysayers of the naysayers – those that say we are being too hard on her and that 16 year olds run companies, climb mountains, race iron-man triathlons and do all sorts of other grown-up things? Maybe we are being too hard on her – but maybe we are also just interjecting some common sense into the equation. We all live in a society today where we are given everything that we ask for. Modern technology has made the impossible at our fingertips – we have GPS’s to keep us from getting lost, avalanche transceivers that help us get found if we get caught in a slide and electronic homing devices to track us down if we get lost in the woods. This all creates a culture where the consequences and a level of responsibility has been sanitized from adventure. The safety net has quietly gotten larger and larger beneath us. If we run into trouble there is a mobilization of help that can get us out of nearly any conceivable jam.

This is where Jessica has gone too far. What she is doing is beyond the safety net – she has taken experience gained within the womb of 21st century perceived-risk activity and parleyed it as experience in the real world. When asked her sailing experience by the same interviewer she was vague and unspecific – when pressed she confessed that her experience of sailing in the deep blue ocean amounts to a mere few hours. Her around the world voyage will be 8-months long. That amount of time in isolation is akin to a mission to Mars. There are numerous stories of sailors coming unglued at the mental seems from that amount of isolation – and these were ultra-driven lone wolf types, not chatty teenagers. She may have the right stuff to handle this and I will be the first to congratulate her if she succeeds, I just have genuine concerns that she lacks the appropriate skills as both a sailor and as a human being to achieve this goal. She has jumped into the deep end of adventure where it is sink or swim – there is no side to grasp hold of if she gets tired and the water is far too deep to touch bottom. Will she be able to do it? I sure hope so, because she’s out there right now amongst the Southern Ocean – home to some of the scariest water on the planet.

There is an uneasy parallel between Jessica and Balloon Boy – both have very driven and media savvy parents. One pretended to risk the life of their child to gain notoriety while the other has let their daughter partake in an adventure that goes so far beyond acceptable risk that negligence is the word that comes to mind. So what is worse? To be duped by an attention seeker or to knowingly support one?

You be the judge and tonight when you settle into your warm bed, spare a thought for Jessica – cold and alone in a tiny boat far from home.

Click here to read Jessica’s blog and learn more about her expedition.