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When Abby Sunderland was 16 years old, she tried to set a record. She wanted to be the youngest person to sail alone around the world.
Abby began her journey on January 23, 2010. Her boat was named Wild Eyes. She began in Marina del Rey, California. In March, she became the youngest solo sailor to round Cape Horn. Cape Horn is the southernmost point of South Africa.
Sending a Distress Signal
On the morning of June 10, 2010, Abby ran into trouble. There was a major storm. It produced 9- meter (30-foot) waves that damaged her boat. Abby was more than 3,218 kilometers (2,000 miles) from shore. She was in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean.
All of Abby’s regular ways of communicating were damaged. To communicate means to share information with. She couldn’t use a radio or phone to let anyone know she needed help. At that point, Abby turned to her emergency beacons. The beacons communicated Abby’s location in the ocean. As a result, a search-and- rescue team was able to find Abby’s boat and rescue her.
Signals Transfer Information
Beacons work by sending distress signals. A signal is an action used to communicate information. There are many kinds of signals. If you wave your hands in the air to get someone’s attention, you are sending a signal.
Many signals use patterns to transfer information from one place to another. Remember that patterns are things that happen in a regular and repeated way. For example, if you send three of any signal, it means you need help. This could be blowing three short times into a whistle. Or it could be turning a flashlight on and off quickly three times.
Three whistle sounds or three flashes of light are codes. A code is a message communicated with a pattern of information (symbols, letters, words, sound, light, etc.).
Morse Code
People use different systems for communicating messages over a distance. One of the longest-lasting systems is Morse code. Morse code is a way of encoding text into a series of dots and dashes.
To encode means to turn information into a format or code so it can be easily and/or securely transmitted. To transmit means to pass on from one place or person to another. For example, with Morse code, each letter of the alphabet and number is represented by a sequence of dots and dashes. The dots and dashes can be transmitted by pulses of light, on-off tones, or clicks of sound.
When another person receives the code, they have to decode the message. To decode means to turn coded information back into a form that can be understood.
Morse code isn’t used as often as it once was. However, it is still used in some situations. SOS remains the most common distress signal. It is recognized around the world. SOS is represented by three dots, three dashes, and three dots.
Air traffic control towers use signal lamps that use Morse code. These signal lamps are a backup. They are there in case a plane’s radio stops working.
Sailors in the Navy also sometimes use signal lamps to communicate in Morse code. This is especially useful when there is a need to be silent.
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