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Friday, September 4, 2009

Weird news: 13 year old Dutch girl wants to sail around the world

The craze to create records can make people do all sorts of things. But the expectation is that parents are there to control and guide the lives of children until they are capable of making their own decision. However, this does not always seem the case.
If you consider the art of sailing, it seems all fun and pleasure, out on the blue waters, under a nice sun, enjoying. However, if you consider a much longer journey, then not everything is such smooth sailing; you have storms, harsh weather, hot burning sun, engines break, and so on. Hardly something a 13 year old girl can manage alone, and yet her parents are fine with her attempting this. It took a court to bring some sense into this issue (link to article):


A Dutch court intervened Friday to stop a 13-year-old girl from attempting to sail around the world by herself, stripping her parents of sole custody. Laura Dekker's parents support her round-the-world ambition, which sparked concern from child protection officials because of her age. They took the case to court to prevent the solo trip.
Social workers took the action to stop the teen from attempting to become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe because they believe the voyage would be too dangerous. "It's really more a question, is that person, that young person, mature enough to be able to look after themselves and deal with everything that's going to come at you when you get out alone at sea?" he said.

Seems more like an attempt to make a name for a person, or else a strong wish, not founded on more logical thinking, in some quarters, this could be called a 'death wish'.

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