In the end, the only 16-year-old Dutch woman showed it to everyone. Your worst critics, all the doubters, LaurDekker has given you the lie. She has sailed around the world. Alone, if not non-stop, as Australian JessicWatson, almost the same age, had managed not so long ago.
Dekker traveled in stages. From the Netherlands initially accompanied by her father to Portugal and on to Gibraltar. From there then solo on the barefoot route around the world, i.e. via the Canaries to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal and the South Seas to Australia, on over the Indian Ocean to South Africa and from there back to the Atlantic again to the Caribbean.
On January 21 of this year, LaurDekker came full circle on the Antilles island of Sint Maarten. Your project was done, and the whole trip was a success. The only downer: your record is not recognized by anyone. All the authorities in question consider the risk associated with such a trip to be too great. It is feared that an award could encourage potential imitators to do the same for Dekker.
LaurDekker on arrival in Sint Maarten
The Dutch woman has long been indifferent to that. She fought her battle, successfully. Especially against the school authorities, youth psychologists and courts in their homeland, all of whom wanted to keep them from the trip. Too young, was the reason at the time. And many joined the criticism.
YACHT author Sabine Kowalczyk met LaurDekker before her trip and talked to her for a long time. Back then (YACHT 11/2010) she wrote an impressive portrait of a teenage girl who seemed so much more sensible and determined than most of her contemporaries. Now, after completing the record run, Kowalczyk takes stock again.
In YACHT 5/2012 (available now) she brings the most important stations of the trip to life with comments, diary and blog entries by the young sailor. It reminds of the difficult beginning, describes the triumphant end, but also describes the ups and downs in between. The portrait shows a LaurDekker who has grown, who has become more mature, but who above all has remained true to herself.