24 December 2009 ~ 2 Comments

Dutch Teen Laura Dekker might be able to sail next summer

General News


The Dutch courts, against the will of the Dutch social care system are offering Laura Decker a conditional green light for her round the world sail/cruise. This hardly comes as a surprise, most could probably see such is her determination that if she didn’t get what she wanted it she would have needed to have been taken into care to stop her attempt which would have served to help her build up a good dose of anger and may have lead to a or many dangerous unsupervised attempts. Here we will look briefly at young sailors and some of the things being said about them.

Young sailors have been a big feature in the worlds press recently with the 13 year old Laura Decker footing a large amount of the focus. There have been noises and a lot of talking among the online sailing community saying that they strongly disapprove of not just Lauras but all young adventurers skirmishes around the globe.

In Particular the community at Sailnet.com have been talking and some rallying to voice their overall disapproval at the younger generations efforts. While over at the YBW forum there have been calls to offer Mike Perham a heros welcome.

Opportunity & Encouragement
The opportunity to sail around the world is absolutely fantastic at any age. This is not to mean that every child who has ever sailed a topper or any other type of boat should immediately be transferred into a yacht and sent off around the world. However if you look into the history of many of the great sportsmen of today you’ll probably find that most of them have been at it for a while.

Young sailors is not a new thing to the world or even the UK where we actively encourage children from the age of 16 to do the Gold Duke Of Edinburgh’s award where if you want to do sailing for your expedition one of the options they suggest is sailing across the channel. While Laura’s trip is not without it perils she has already single handed from Holland to the UK proving that the sailing part is achievable.

Non-stop risk
There is of course a much bigger risk to those attempting non-stop sails around the world. Abby Sunderland, 15, crashed into a container ship on a trial run on her boat ‘Pink Lady’ which is rumoured to have happened when she had dozed off, Zac Sunderland who completed his round the world trip this summer joked with his sister Abby who just set-off that sleep deprivation would be her biggest challenge. For anyone completing a stopping cruise around the world the odds are definitely in their favour, it’s now up to the courts as to whether Laura is adequately prepared both mentally and physically for her challenge.

Assuming all are well prepared, we here at Saild wish her, Jessica Watson, Abby Sunderland and all of the other young adventurers the best of luck in their round the world trips and look forwards to tracking their progress.

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  • Random Thought

    The problem is ‘sailing’ is supposed to be old fogies domain. Much like golf. Middle age men who decide to become sailors after working all their lives, suddenly become sailors and spend the rest of their lives trying to become one. Much like golf. Constantly trying to become a better player or in this case sailor. This is not supposed to be the domain of young natural sailors. The handful out there that have salt running through their veins. When these Perham’s, Sunderlands, Dekkers suddenly emerge the old folk, who struggle daily to become real sailors, take offense. These natural sailor teens are doing what these old men can only dream about. These same old folk who putter around on their lavish yachts doing day sails. Those same people that spend a year planning a weekend sail offshore. Here come these kids with natural sailing abilities planning on sailing for an entire year. This does not sit well with these old folk who are still learning to tie knots.

    It’s a generation thing. Kids today or smarter stronger more natural that their own parents. Just as with the internet age, only old folk are supposed to be millionaires. You’re supposed to only make a million once you hit 60 years old plus, yet we have millionaires and billionaires under the age of 30 even. It’s not supposed to be like that. But it is and that is the way goes. The people that need to know their place are not these youngsters, it is the oldsters.

    Sail on little children and ignore the old nay sayers.

  • TestComment

    Here is a test comment I would really like to see how this appears and whether something happens down here.