THE HAGUE — Dutch teen sailor Laura Dekker, who fought a court battle for the right to go to sea, is closing in on the record of being the youngest person to solo-circumnavigate the globe, her father said Thursday.
The 16-year-old is expected to arrive on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten late this month, meaning she would break the record “by more than half a year,” Dick Dekker said.
“She should finish her circumnavigation between January 20 and 25, probably on January 22 or 23,” he said.
The teenager, sailing her 38-foot ketch “Guppy,” has to complete her voyage before Sept. 16 this year to break the unofficial record set by Australian Jessica Watson in May 2010.
The Australian teen finished her unassisted around-the-world sail three days before her 17th birthday. Dekker turns 17 on Sept. 20.
The Dutch teen set a westerly course from Gibraltar on Aug. 21, 2010, after winning a 10-month court battle with child welfare authorities.
A Dutch court had blocked plans for her to cast off a year earlier — when she was just 14 — and placed her in the care of child welfare officers on the grounds that she was too young to guarantee her own safety at sea.
Concerns over piracy off Somalia forced her to reconsider heading north through the Suez Canal, and she instead chose a route that passed south of Africa.
“Her initial itinerary planned for her to arrive at the same place from where she departed, that’s to say Gibraltar, but given that she finally decided to avoid the Suez Canal and passed south of South Africa, it was easier to finish in St. Maarten,” Dekker said.
Unlike Watson, who circumnavigated non-stop, Dekker sailed from port to port and was never at sea for more than three weeks. She stopped in St. Maarten on Dec. 18, 2010 to Jan. 20 last year after the first leg of her voyage.
Dick Dekker said Thursday that after her trip ended, Laura planned to live in New Zealand, saying his daughter was “tired of the Netherlands, which has not ceased trying to put a spoke in her wheels.”