15 year old NZ born solo-sailor closes in on Australia

15 year old NZ born solo-sailor closes in on Australia and Jessica Watson record

One year since she left Gibraltar at the age of 14, New Zealand-born Dutch sailor Laura Dekker is closer to becoming the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the world.

Like Australia’s Jessica Watson and Abby Sunderland from the USA, Dekker’s trip attracted controversy and criticism, yet only Dekker was dragged through her nation’s court system to prevent her from attempting her dream.

The court case, her solo trip to the UK where authorities forced her father to accompany her on the journey home to Holland, her escape to the Caribbean and the intensely negative media took its toll on the young adventurer who still struggles to forgive her government and the media generally.

Of all the recent young sailors, Dekker seems the most independent. “It's easier to be so far from home than I thought. So far it's even better than I expected. It pretty much has become a lifestyle which I totally like,” she told her new manager Lyall Mercer.

Dekker recently appointed Mercer, an Australian publicist and talent manager who also represents American teen sailor Abby Sunderland and flew across the world to coordinate Sunderland’s media and publicity after her dramatic rescue in the Indian Ocean last year.

Mercer said it was an honour to represent Dekker. “Laura is a free spirit and there are very few like her. While she is aiming at the record, her motivation is not fame but personal achievement,” he said.

Dekker left the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu a few days ago and is headed for Australia, where her father Dick is expected to meet her. Mercer said she will arrive in Darwin at the end of this month or early September.

While she is a citizen of New Zealand – where she was born on a yacht – as well as The Netherlands and Germany, the young sailor has never visited Australia or New Zealand.

“She is very disappointed to be unable to drop in to the land of her birth as she has a great passion to return – maybe even to live for a time – to New Zealand,” Mercer said.

While Dekker says she doesn’t know what to expect in Australia, she told Mercer that the first thing she will probably do upon arrival is sleep.

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