Laura Dekker

[GordMay]

Srictly speaking, I think Laura may have set sail towards Portugal.

CANOE Travel - News - Dutch 14-year-old sets sail for solo world voyage

[sigmasailor]

Sorry for my dinglish. You're probably right but my English is not good enough to see the difference. Should we create a new topic to follow Laura on this trip?

Eric

[sigmasailor]

Laura started to update her blog. She reports making good progress buts she's getting some water on the boat (duikboot is Dutch for submarine). Laura also reports that the radio broke down; she's still enjoying herself.

Blog

[Doodles]

De radio is kapot ... cool, now I can speak Dutch.

Go Laura!

[mintyspilot]

Originally Posted by Doodles

De radio is kapot ... cool, now I can speak Dutch.

Go Laura!

I've always thought that dutch looks like badly pronounced english

[MacG]

Facts are that the court dismissed the governmental jurisdiction. They called it actually "not according" to the law. So the whole (legal) case ended here.

Even in August, the Biscaya area can be pretty nasty. I did it a few times and the last one we dropped literally from a wave and the engine broke loose from its foundation. The weather is now pretty windy and rainy so she can get her 'breast wetted' (Dutch expression).

I heard from some guy who sailed up with her and her Dad that the boat was leaking and making a little or so water - but she remained quite stoïcal, he said.
It is a good thing that her Dad escorts her on the first leg.

[sigmasailor]

Originally Posted by Doodles

De radio is kapot ... cool, now I can speak Dutch.

Go Laura!

Mooi zo, dan kan ik in het Nederlands verder gaan.

[MacG]

Op zich geen probleem maar dan kunnen de andere gebruikers niet meelezen (en genieten)

[bengtinge]

Originally Posted by paradix

The argument, in my view, should then be "what is an appropriate age to sail alone?". In Australia they have set that age at 16. In The Netherlands they appear to have chosen a younger age. That does not imply that they believe a 14yr old should be allowed to take ALL risks at that age, however.

According to Wikipedia there is an age limit of 16 to sail as a skipper or solo in Netherlands for such boats.
However Laura does not sail alone before leaving Portugal. There was a report that she sailed alone aged 13 to England, but was prevented by the police to sail back alone.

This is a link to the legal text (linked from Wikipedia as reference for the claim)
wetten.nl - Wet- en regelgeving - BWBR0003628

However I can't read Dutch.

[MacG]

If you could, you would have known that this particular law concerns the inland waterways. Not the sea.
Abby Sunderland was 15 and Jessica Watson just touching 16.
"Cowboy Kate" Miller just touching 18 when she started in the OSTAR last year.
Ok, you have a point, Laura is 14 now and in a few months 15. Save for Kate Miller, she has the best experience of the two other young girls. Secondly her voyage is stripped from the thrive for a record. She is making stops and some very experienced sailor called it a "holiday-trip".
The boat she's got is pretty well equipped and I presume they will manage to get everything working by the time they arrive in Portugal.
I think all the readers of this forum, wherever they are, will keep an eye out on Laura whenever she arrives in their perimeter.

This girl behaved very sophisticated, didn't look for media coverage as such and that might be one of the reasons that she is off her way now, only one year later.

[Noztradamus]

Originally Posted by MacG

If you could, you would have known that this particular law concerns the inland waterways. Not the sea.
Abby Sunderland was 15 and Jessica Watson just touching 16.
~~~~~

Actually, the other way around. Abby was 16(plus about 3 weeks) when she, Laurie, and Zac took delivery of Wild Eyes.

Jessica was one week short of her 16th birthday when youngestaround.com was sailed to Brisbane (double handed) and 16 years and one day when she soloed (under power) - not letting the ink on the boat licence dry.

Interestingly both girls went solo on their boats under sail at the same age - 16 years 3 months. But Jessica's was the second voyage of a well planned post refit workup, while Abby's solo was the departure of of a hoped round the world non-stop - that was never going to turn out well.

[bengtinge]

I am reading Jessica's book. She wrote that she got her license very early after her 16th birthday, I think it was the day after.

About Laura: today she writes "Too bad that we had to turn off the guestbook on my website because annoying people
were writing weird things."

Otherwise she is OK. Her dad eats all good food she jokes. Luckily they are not too far from Lisbon. I calculated the distance to 1010 nm (using great circle formula but aving waypoints outside Brest and Santiago). On 10th she had gone 685 nm in 6 days so she should arrive around Saturday.

Several equipment problem have been emerged.

Luckily they plan several stops. In opposite to Abby and her team who planned non-stop but did plan for a stop in Cabo San Lucas if needed. They decided to do that stop which looked like a failure since this plan was not published before. Bad PR.

[slomotion]

Originally Posted by bengtinge

About Laura: today she writes "Too bad that we had to turn off the guestbook on my website because annoying people
were writing weird things."

.............

Luckily they plan several stops. In opposite to Abby and her team who planned non-stop but did plan for a stop in Cabo San Lucas if needed. They decided to do that stop which looked like a failure since this plan was not published before. Bad PR.

I think a lot of people still mistakenly believe that Laura is attempting a Jessica/Abby type nonstop unassisted voyage. As a result she probably gets a lot of wacko hate mail from the misinformed.

The truth is that this is planned as a multi-stop almost cruise-like voyage using the canals and requiring only a couple of long ocean passages. She does not intend to round the Great Capes, and she will never be in the Southern Ocean. Her boat's design is a proven world cruiser. And if they get it reasonably right at the outset, she has a very good chance of completing her mission with multiple opportunities to repair/modify/reprovision the boat as needed along the way.

[MacG]

Even if she is in need of some modifications along her way who wouldnt stick out a helping hand?
With a bit of luck she comes out quite right. Maybe she'll find a boyfriend somewhere - who knows? She'll gain a lot of experience and if she wants a future in sailing, this is not a bad way to start.

[slomotion]

Originally Posted by MacG

Even if she is in need of some modifications along her way who wouldnt stick out a helping hand?
With a bit of luck she comes out quite right. Maybe she'll find a boyfriend somewhere - who knows? She'll gain a lot of experience and if she wants a future in sailing, this is not a bad way to start.

I think Daddy will be waiting at every port of call - to address boat needs and uh, give an interesting welcome to potential boyfriends.