Dutch police to quiz runaway girl sailor
Runaway teenage sailor Laura Dekker will face questions from Dutch police and social services today after her 5,000-mile trek to a Caribbean island.
Laura, 14, ran away after her dream of becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world was shattered.
Two days after she was reported missing, police managed to track her down on the island of St Maarten.
Police and child care authorities now want to know exactly how Laura got there and why she fled, as a family spokeswoman speculated that she was overcome by the pressure of a court battle over the sailing attempt.
St Maarten police spokesman Ricardo Henson said Laura arrived on the island on Thursday from Paris.
She flew out yesterday dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and carrying several bags, a small suitcase and a guitar.
It remained unclear whether she had any plans to use the island, half of which is part of the Netherlands Antilles, as a start point for a sailing voyage.
Laura made international headlines in August when a court temporarily blocked her bid to set sail alone around the world in her 26ft yacht Guppy.
If Laura were to get permission to set off on the voyage and successfully complete it, she would break a record set this year by 17-year-old Briton Mike Perham, who sailed 28,000 miles around the world in nine months.
A 16-year-old Australian girl, Jessica Watson, is currently trying to beat that record.
Utrecht District Court ruled in October that Laura was too inexperienced for the marathon voyage.
Judges sent her home to live with her divorced father and appointed a temporary guardian to ensure she did not set off on the voyage. They urged her to make better preparations and said they would reconsider her case in July.
Laura, born on a boat in New Zealand while her parents were sailing around the world, is widely acknowledged – even by the judges – to be an excellent sailor.
Instead of calling authorities when she went missing, her father, seen as a driving force behind her sailing plan, called her mother who in turn informed police on Friday. She was spotted and detained on St Maarten on Sunday.
Laura’s mother has remained largely out of the picture, but she has said she considered her daughter too young to make the round-the-world trip.
In recent weeks Laura had been feeling drained by the pressure, family spokeswoman Mariska Woertman said.
“For her it was a big disappointment that the judges wouldn’t let her go,” she said. “For a child of 14 years old it’s probably a bit difficult to grasp.”
She said Laura had “a gut feeling” the court would not let her set sail next year either.
Laura was expected to arrive back in the Netherlands on a flight today, police spokesman Bernhard Jens said. Police will then ask her how she managed to slip out of the country last week and whether anybody helped her.
“We have a number of questions for her,” Mr Jens said. “How did this happen? Why did you go? How did you go? Did you go with somebody else?”
Joost Lanshage of Bureau Youth Care, which appointed Laura’s temporary court-ordered guardian, said the court’s ban on her trip had hit her hard.
“She had a dream and it fell apart – that round-the-world trip,” he said. “In the end she collapsed under the weight of the attention that generated and the dream being shattered. She is looking for some order.”
