While Britain is anxiously waiting for 17-year-old Mike Perham to sail into Portmouth on 29 August after having sailed around the world, 13-year-old Laura Dekker has had to lawyer up in order to fight for the opportunity to attempt the same feat for the Netherlands.

An English article about Perham ironically starts with “while most teenagers may have been losing sleep over their exam results during the past few days”, while the Dutch courts have called upon Child Services, claiming Dekker’s parents are keeping their child from school because her learning while on the sailboat is ‘nonsense’. If Child Services thinks that the parents are not doing right by Laura, there is talk of removing her from their custody.

To avoid this situation, Laura who has dual citizenship with New Zealand, is ready to emigrate – that’s how much Laura and her parents believe in this sailing journey.

Her lawyer tries to tell the courts about this exceptional teenager. “Laura is not just some girl. She was born on a sailboat and lived the first four years of her life on one at sea. She has all the necessary skills and qualities for this journey.”

He makes another good point as well. If we compare Laura to a 13-year-old gymnast, no one goes and checks to see if the gymnast goes to school or is brought up properly — they get support from an Olympic committee or a sports association.

So, are the Dutch Children’s Services not seeing the big picture or are they seeing it very clearly? Why are boys like Mike Perham and record holder Zac Sunderland of the US praised and encouraged, but Laura discouraged? Is she really too young or is a girl less capable? Stay tuned!

My personal, uneducated take is that the entire family could just skip town to New Zealand for a year. Then New Zealand can claim the world record for solo sailing around the world.

(Links: timesonline.co.uk, depers.nl, Photo of an entirely unrelated boat by the US Navy.)

Laura Dekker, 13 years old, is planning to attempt to sail around the world solo between 2009 and 2011, Algemeen Dagblad reports (Dutch). The current record is held by Zac Sunderland of the USA who finished his journey at age 17.

Dekker’s plan has drawn comments from naysayers who feel she is too young, should be in school, and who think her parents are irresponsible. Her response to these comments is one of indifference: “To be honest, I had expected the comments to be even worse. People do not know what they are talking about, so I won’t let it get to me.”

Preparations are going well, according to Dekker’s website. She will be sailing a Hurley 800, a boat made in Twente, and she will send and receive her high school homework using e-mail (she is still looking for a satellite phone, though). Dekker hopes to set sail this September.

(Photo of an entirely unrelated boat by the US Navy.)

A Dutch school in The Hague, Nutsschool Bezuidenhout, decided that teaching kids about eating maggots was worthwhile subject matter during a school outing, according to Dutch newspaper AD. Two brave kids ate some maggots on a dare from teachers. Lo and behold, the mother of one of the other children complained to the newspaper of this ‘game’ played by 11 and 12-year-old children who do not have the capacity of making their own choices. Apparently, the kids threw up as well. In true Dutch ‘everything is relative’ form, the school said none of the children threw up, but admitted that eating maggots was ‘a bit disgusting’.

The most digusting thing I have every had to eat was as a preschooler: green Jell-o, a glow-in-the-dark lime green dessert made of sugar and jelly. I ate half, got scolded for not eating it, got sick and my mother yelled at the teacher in front of the entire preschool class for at least 30 minutes for forcing me to ‘crap junk food’. Never had the stuff again.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)

Last year the government raised the age limit for compulsory education from 16 to 18 years, but 16 year old Robbin Robijn probably could care less. He no longer has to go to school, because the government has just given him an exemption. Reason: the success of his company. Robijn, living in a village called De Kiel in Drenthe, turned 16 last month, and for the past year has been selling microcars of a type known as brommobiel—a car that’s legally a moped, and that’s not allowed to go faster than 45 kph.

The teenager discovered a market for microcars when he bought one off the internet last year, fixed it, and sold it for a handy profit. “Selling is in my blood,” he told Z24, “I’ve been doing it since I was ten. First chickens and rabbits, and now microcars.”

Photo: a Grecav Eke pick-up microcar, by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved.