August 21, 2010 - Fourteen year old Laura Dekker set off from Portugal yesterday on her long sought after and much-litigated solo circumnavigation. She's sailing a 38' Jeanneau ketch. Her first stopover will be at either Spain's Canary islands or Portugal's Madeira Island where she will await the end of hurricane season before crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean.  In 2009 she announced her plan to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe.  Dutch authorities opposed this plan and courtroom wrangling ensued. In July 2010, the Dutch court announced that she is allowed to sail the world solo.

From Wikipedia - Dekker plans to sail her boat, the Guppy, from Portugal to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, across the Pacific and then past Indonesia and either around Africa or through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. 26 stops are planned.  At 14 locations Dekker will be met by a support team that follows the same route. It will also help her along difficult spots such as the Panama Canal. An Iridium tracking system onboard will allow a team in the Netherlands to monitor her course closely. This route is not necessarily less risky compared to the non-stop route of Jessica Watson or the two-stop route of Abby Sunderland. This is because the risk of colliding with a ship or running aground is much larger near land than on open ocean. Also the risk of being a crime victim is larger in a port city than on the sea. Dekker will still have to cross the big oceans. On the other hand she will avoid the stormy roaring forties.

Her education will continue through the Wereldschool (Worldschool), an educational institution that would provide her with material for self-learning. During hurricane seasons, Dekker plans to fly home to study there.

Laura Dekker was born on a boat in the port of Whangarei, New Zealand during a seven-year trip by her parents. Her father, Dick Dekker, is Dutch and her mother, Babs Müller, is German, thus Dekker has Dutch, German, and New Zealand citizenship. Her parents divorced in 2002. Dekker spent the first four years of her life at sea. At six, Dekker had her first boat, an Optimist, and learned to sail it herself. The next boat she received at the age of ten was a Hurley 700. She named it Guppy and used it for solo-sailing during her multiweek-long summer vacations; her trips included the Wadden Sea and the North Sea. In May 2009, Dekker made a solo-crossing from Maurik, the Netherlands to Lowestoft, England where local authorities requested her father to come and accompany her on her return voyage.

Although Dekker’s plan was supported by her father, her mother was against it, the local authorities at Wijk bij Duurstede, her residence, objected and got the Child Welfare Office involved. A family court judgment was obtained that placed Dekker in shared parental custody with the Council for Child Care who stopped her departure. The shared custody was to last until July 2010, but a successful application by the child protection agency saw that extended until at least August of that year.

Dekker's plan and the intervention by the government received extensive international attention. Discussed was, aside from the personal matters, the issue to what degree government has a right to intervene when minors engage in risky behaviour that is parentally supported.

According to the Dutch inland shipping regulations, it is prohibited that a captain younger than sixteen years sail a boat longer than seven meters on Dutch waters; thus Dekker would not be allowed to use the boat for any solo excursions within the Netherlands until 2012. She has still done so, with the effect that the police required her father to come and sail the boat home together with her. The circumnavigation, however, would not start in the Netherlands, thus Dutch naval regulations do not apply to her voyage.

On 18 December 2009 a member of Dekker’s family reported her missing to the police. A farewell letter was left for her father, although her boat remained in the port of Maurik. On 20 December, Dekker was found safely on Saint Martin. Two days later she returned to Amsterdam where she was interrogated by the police. On 26 December it was reported that another court in the Netherlands overruled the objections of the social workers and permitted her to sail alone next year; she is expected to do so in September 2010 when she will be 15. On 27 July 2010 the Dutch court ended supervision of Dekker, and decided it was "up to the girl's parents to decide whether she can make the trip." Dekker reported that she will depart "within two weeks". She departed from The Netherlands on August 4th to Portugal.