14-year-old Dutch sailor to head off on Wednesday for solo world bid
Posted: 01 August 2010 0454 hrs

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THE HAGUE: Fourteen-year-old Dutch sailor Laura Dekker said she will leave on Wednesday for Portugal from where she will launch her bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo.

"It is great that I can now officially go, and that will be on Wednesday 4 August at 9:00 am," Dekker announced on her Internet site Saturday.

A district court last week rejected a request by a child care council to extend state supervision over the teenager to stop her from attempting the record sail, citing fears for her social and emotional well-being.

Dekker will on Wednesday sail from the small southeastern port of Den Osse with her father, with whom she has lived on a boat there since March, the ANP news agency reported.

"The trip officially starts from Portugal and so it is not a problem if people, in this case my father, sail with me to that point," she said.

Dekker said her father would help her to test her yacht Guppy, and "improve the last little things", before she takes the boat around the world.

The date for the launch of her official solo bid had not yet been fixed, she said.

Dekker, who has the backing of her parents for the venture, would have to complete the trip at the latest four days before her 17th birthday on September 20, 2012, in order to set a new record.

She had planned to set sail in September 2009 but was thwarted by the intervention of child care authorities and a subsequent court ruling placing her under the supervision of the child care council. - AFP/fa