Another solo teenager to set sail

by Nancy Knudsen, Editor on 29 Jul 2010 The Sydney International Boat Show starts today, with a great line-up of sailing celebs - Don McIntyre (the Bounty re-enactment man), Jessica Watson and the ubiquitous Mike Perham. If you're anywhere near Sydney, don't miss it, it's on until Monday.

The biggest news of the week is that, whether we like it or not, another teenager – at 14 the youngest ever - will set off on a world circumnavigation in a couple of weeks.

Before you put your good parenting hat on, her journey in NO WAY resembles that of Abby Sunderland who was dismasted in the south Indian Ocean, or of Jessica Watson, who has become Australia's darling after an eight month marathon through the Southern Ocean.

No, Laura Dekker, Dutch 14-year-old born on a sailing boat in New Zealand (she carries both passports), is setting out on a cruising journey to see the world, a repetition of her earliest memories, when she sailed the world with her parents in the first four years of her life.

Her plan is similar to many cruising sailors. She's travelling through tropic zones, one leg at a time, staying out of both the hurricane seasons and the Southern Ocean, and the longest time she will probably be at sea is 21 days. Still wouldn't let your daughter do it? No, probably neither would I.

There are lots of sailing adventurers out there having the time of their lives. (If you're not, what's keeping you?) More than 100 yachts have just set off for the annual Sail Indonesia Rally from Darwin. One Italian sailor Alessandro di Benedetto, who has just completed a non-stop solo circumnavigation on a 6.5 metre yacht, has an amazing tale to tell. He was dismasted just before he rounded Cape Horn – and just kept sailing! Now that requires good seamanship.

Plastiki, that plastic bottle catamaran being sailed by David di Rothschild and a stalwart crew, have crossed the Pacific to reach a media storm in Sydney.

He is now effectively directing that storm of that publicity at the damage that plastic is doing to our oceans, poisoning the fish and those who eat them. If that's you, you need to heed his warning. The saddest thing about this message is that it could all be fixed with the stroke of a politician's pen.

Valuable information in this issue includes tricks about heaving to, a warning about stoves on boats, and some solid information about permanent preventers.

So many more stories too, you probably can't read them all, but browse down the headlines and choose your interest.

Sweet sailing!