A 16-year-old California girl who is awaiting rescue in the Indian Ocean aboard her storm-damaged yacht will likely give up on her dream of sailing solo around the world, a family spokesman said Friday.
A French fishing boat was expected to reach Abby Sunderland, of Thousand Oaks, between midnight and 12:30 a.m. Pacific on Saturday after a search plane launched from Australia's west coast made radio contact with her Friday morning, said Jeff Casher, the spokesman.
"This is the end of the dream. There's no boat to sail," he said.
Sunderland set off a distress beacon when her sailboat became damaged by 30-foot waves.
Her family told TODAY's Meredith Vieira on Friday that the wait for news after the distress beacon went off was "tense."
"They're not enjoyable moments, of course, and your mind does play tricks with you," said her father, Lawrence Sunderland, a shipwright who owns a yacht management company. "It's just a waiting game."