17-year-old Californian teen sails around world alone, breaks record

Zac Sunderland, who left the Los Angeles coast 13 months ago with a bold ambition to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone, returned to complete that quest yesterday morning.

Sunderland, who departed when he was 16 on June 14, 2008, beat a record held by Australia’s Jesse Martin, who was 18 when he finished his voyage in 1999.

Sunderland was greeted with thunderous applause and congratulations as he arrived at Marina del Rey in his 36-foot sailboat.

"It's kind of crazy to have it done now because, I mean, for the past year I've been just fighting for the next ocean, fighting to get back. And now I'm back so it's amazing," he said.

Sunderland crossed three oceans, five seas, and the equator twice, covering more than 25,000 miles. He endured a pirate scare, a broken boom, a broken tiller, broken forestay rigging, and a broken bulkhead, and he was almost washed overboard by a rogue wave off Grenada.