Say what you will about Southern California sailor Abby Sunderland — that her parents put her up to a perilous attempt to sail around the world, that she did it for a reality television show, that her rescue cost hundreds of thousands of tax dollars in Australia.

Whatever. She's one tough girl who really does appear to love life on the high seas. At a press conference Tuesday morning in Marina Del Rey, she described what got her through the most frightening moments of her voyage, which saw her mast collapse and her yacht, Wild Eyes, become an ocean-bound paperweight:

“You get scared,” she told reporters, “and then you have to get over it because being scared — it doesn't do anything good. It just makes you hesitate and makes more problems start coming.”

Sunderland's hopes of becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe in a solo voyage on a sailing boat was dashed when her vessel hit reported 25-foot seas in an Indian Ocean storm. She lost communication but was rescued.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.