Photos by Jen Edney / Special to The Star Zac Sunderland, 16, goes out for a sail with one of his sponsors, Ocean Rescue TV, earlier this month in Ventura. The Thousand Oaks teenager is aiming to be the youngest person to sail around the world alone.

If a Thousand Oaks teenager gets his wish, he'll spend his 17th birthday somewhere in the Indian Ocean under an endless tropical sky this November, well on his way to accomplishing what some people say would be a world record.

Zac Sunderland, 16, has been working seven days a week on a 36-foot sailboat at the Ventura Harbor, making sure it is seaworthy enough to carry him across the Pacific Ocean and ultimately around the world.

Zac plans to sail away at the end of this month. With luck, he'll return by May 2009. He would still be 17, making him the youngest person to successfully sail around the world alone, he says.

That record is now held by David Dicks, an Australian yachtsman, Zac said. Dicks set sail for his round-the-world journey from western Australia in 1996 at age 17. When he got back nine months later, Dicks was 18 years and 41 days old.

Zac will have to be back before January 2010 to beat that record.

"I should have more than enough time if I leave by the end of May," the confident teen said as he took a break last week from working on the fiberglass-hull boat.

Zac and his father, Laurence Sunderland, know that much will depend on good planning and luck.

"We want to get Zac around the world safely," Laurence Sunderland said as he sat at a picnic table across from his son at the Anchors Way Marine boatyard.

He anticipates some people will criticize his decision to allow a 16-year-old to travel around the globe alone in a boat. But they might be less critical if they knew how familiar Zac is with the sea.

"The ocean is his backyard," his father said.

When Zac was brought home from the hospital as a baby, he was taken aboard a boat in Marina Del Rey, where his father and mom, Marianne, lived.

"He knew how to sail before he knew how to ride a bicycle," his father said. "It's something that is definitely second nature to him," he said, recalling how his son has accompanied him on numerous sailing voyages.

A native of southern England, Laurence Sunderland has been a shipwright for many years, working on boats around the world.

Asked when he decided he wanted to sail around the world solo, Zac paused. "It was a long time ago," he said, guessing he might have been 8 when he started considering the idea.

When he turned 16 in late November, he knew he would have to set sail soon if he wanted to set a record. With the support of his family, he bought the 36-foot boat, using $6,000 of his own money.

Built in 1972, the boat now sits on stilts at the Ventura boatyard, its hull and keel exposed.

His father has also dipped into his savings to get the boat ready, spending about $30,000 on the project so far. As to how much more will need to be spent, his dad said it depends.

"We could either outfit the boat with just the essentials or equip it with more sophisticated technology," he said.

Either way, the boat will have three GPS location systems, a satellite phone that allows Zac to call land from far out at sea, radar, and a sextant in case some of the high-tech tools malfunction.

Zac does not expect he'll have any trouble sleeping at night, even though he'll be alone.

If a big ship comes along, the radar should sound an alarm loud enough to rouse him. The radar is calibrated to detect a boat or ship more than a dozen miles away, his father said.

As with every ocean journey, weather will be a huge factor. Zac will sail in a southwesterly direction to get south of the equator and away from the storms that form in the North Pacific during the summer. He might head to the Marshall Islands in Micronesia.

Then it will be on to Darwin on the north coast of Australia. Sunderland, who lived in Australia for many years, likely will fly there to meet his son.

Zac will then sail to the Cocos Islands southeast of India and then to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, landing there by Christmas if all goes well.

Zac said he'd rather sail around South Africa. Otherwise, he'd have to go north into the Red Sea and past Somalia — an area plagued by pirates. Zac will head to the Caribbean from Africa, crossing the Panama Canal and then north to California.

Another young circumnavigator, Tania Aebi, now 41, recalls setting sail alone around the world from New York City at the age of 18.

"I had a pretty basic boat," Aebi said by phone from her home in Vermont. Unlike Zac, Aebi sailed without GPS or other sophisticated electronic equipment. Aebi soon found herself out on the open sea and scared.

"The scariest part was heading away from land and not knowing what you were going to find out there."

She eventually learned how to replace her fear with prudence — key to staying alive when you're alone and far away from land, she said.

"When you're out there alone, you learn humility. You also learn you are really small, and the world is a far bigger place."

When she returned two years later, Aebi said, she was a much different person. She learned self-confidence. She also has less tolerance now for nonsense and rubbish.

Aebi chronicled her journey in a book, "Maiden Voyage."

Zac also hopes to write a book about his trip.

Meanwhile, he'll have plenty to keep him busy on the boat, including keeping up on his schoolwork, which he is taking with him.

On the Net:

http://www.zacsunderland.com