Mother gives 14-year-old sailor last minute blessing as court meets

by Nancy Knudsen on 18 Jul 2010 Just three days before a Dutch Court will meet to consider the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who wants to sail solo round the world, her mother has published a letter giving the voyage her support.

Last year Laura Dekker's mother Babs Mueller, who is separated Laura's father, told a Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that she disapproved of her daughter's trip. It is not known whether this influenced the judges into putting a ban on Laura's departure until at least July this year. In placing the ban, they put her under the authority of the state, citing concerns about her physical ability and social development if she is out of school for months.

Then, on the 16th June, the same children's court in Middleburg, who had asked for fourteen conditions to be met before they would reconsider her application, placed yet another one month ban on her proposed voyage.

This weekend, Mueller has now published an open letter in the Algemeen Dagblad saying she has 'given up her opposition to the voyage.'

'I know she can do it, she's a strong girl who does not give up easily,' Mueller wrote. 'Of course no mother on earth likes it if her daughter goes to sea alone. I will have sleepless nights from the worry, but this is about Laura and how I can help her.'

Mueller also wrote that she has lost faith in child care agencies monitoring Dekker. 'Laura isn't a criminal, she just wants to sail,' she wrote.

While the mainstream media insists on drawing a parallel between Laura Dekker's ambitions and the disastrous end to the voyage of Abby Sunderland, whose mast snapped during rough weather in the South Indian Ocean during a winter storm, the planned voyages are about as alike as an Indian tiger and a Burmese cat.

Laura Dekker will be going nowhere near the Southern Ocean, staying largely to tropical or temperate waters. She will be sailing with the trade winds on a typical cruising route where sailors are many and help is not far away, and she will be stopping, like Zac Sunderland before her, in many ports. Her voyage is planned to sail between the cyclone and hurricane seasons, and the highest winds she is likely to strike, and then not often, are around 40 knots. The longest she will be at sea is around three weeks, four is she is very slow for some reason.

This is not to imply that Laura will necessarily have easy sailing. Sailing any ocean is never for the unwary, and the sea does not tolerate mistakes or bad seamanship. However, the plan is completely different from Abby Sunderland's, who left late in the season for her non-stop attempt with much time to be spent in the Souther Ocean. She was then held up twice by malfunctions on her yacht. Finally, having missed the season but under pressure from her sponsors her fans and her own ambition to get there while she was still younger than Jessica Watson, she continued into the southern Indian Ocean, where winter gales are legendary, instead of calling off the attempt.

Last month, Dekker's lawyer Peter de Lange argued that Laura has been working to meet 14 conditions imposed by the court nine months ago. She has obtained a first aid diploma, practiced functioning with a lack of sleep, and arranged to follow schoolwork via Internet, he said.

In the meantime, Laura, full of hope, has been preparing her yacht, a Jeanneau Gin Fizz called Guppy, acquired recently for the voyage.

Born on a boat in New Zealand during a circumnavigation by her parents, Laura has already sailed half the world, and is not giving up easily. When she was eleven, she sailed an earlier 'Guppy' solo to Britain, much to the horror of the British authorities, who put her in a children's home on arrival. When she was released into the custody of her father, he took her to the shore and she sailed home again.

After the court meets on the coming Tuesday, we shall know more.