A 'crazy' ordeal for rescued sailor, 16

Abby Sunderland, from California, was bumped and bruised but otherwise healthy, her parents said after hearing from their daughter in a 20-minute phone call.

The teenager continued to blog after being rescued more than 2,000 miles west of Australia when a wave broke the mast of her boat, Wild Eyes.

She wrote: "Crazy is the word that really describes everything that has happened.

"The long and the short of it is, well, one long wave, and one short mast."

Abby will now spend more than a week travelling to Reunion Island, a French territory east of Madagascar.

She dismissed criticism that she was too young to undertake an attempt to sail around the world by herself.

"As for age, since when does age create gigantic waves and storms?" she wrote.

Her father Laurence, a boat builder who teaches sailing, said his daughter had thousands of miles of solo sailing experience before she set out and he had scrutinised her skills.

"This was not a flippant decision," he said. "Abigail's been raised on the ocean all her life. She's lived over half her life on yachts. ... This is like second nature to Abigail."

Mr Sunderland said the team of experts that worked on Wild Eyes and the circumnavigation project was "second to none".

He said his daughter had wanted to sail solo around the world since she was 13 but he considered her "not fit" at that age or 14, when she was already helming by herself.

"And I did a lot of things to dissuade her actually by showing her the ferocity of the ocean around here ... taking yachts in very adverse conditions and to see what her mettle was made of," he said.

He said his daughter simply "caught a bad wave".

"Should age be a factor here?" he said. "Abigail has proven herself. She sailed around Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope. She'd endured 50 knots and 60 knots-plus of wind prior to this unfortunate circumstance."

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said the French ship Ile De La Reunion brought Abby aboard from her stricken craft at the site. French authorities called it a "delicate operation" and said at one point the fishing boat's captain fell into the ocean and had to be rescued, but was in "good health".

Australian authorities were broadcasting a message to boats crossing through the area warning them that Abby's sailboat was still adrift.

Her mother Marianne said her daughter was relieved to be off her boat, but it was difficult to abandon it.

"When you're on a boat like Abby has been and so closely related to that boat for your everyday existence you become very close to it," she said.

"She had to leave Wild Eyes in the middle of the ocean and that's been hard for her."

Abby wrote in her blog: "I keep hitting the wrong keys and am still trying to get over the fact that I will never see my Wild Eyes again."

She set out from Marina del Rey on the Los Angeles County coast on January 23, trying to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo and non-stop.

Soon after starting her trip, she ran into equipment problems and had to stop for repairs. She gave up the goal of setting the record in April, but hoped to complete the journey.

Her brother Zac held the record briefly last year until Briton Mike Perham completed his own journey. The record changed hands last month when 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson completed her own around-the-world voyage.