I haven't done anything yet, and still, I'm already in front of a court" -  said the 13-year-old at her trial in August. The Dutch teenager was born on a yacht in the territory of New Zealand while her parents were sailing around the world.  . Recently, the girl, who was sailing alone at sea was intercepted bythe Dutch and British authorities.. This May, she  was taken into the careof a children's home in Lowestoft, East England. Laura's case came to court because of her family's conflict with her school, and later with the Ministry of Education, when her parents made an application to exempt her from school attendance till September 2011, which the authorities considered impossible. During the two months grace period, psychologists wil examine the girl to assess her capacity to undertake the voyage.

"If she wants to go, let her go, we cannot hold her back" - declared Laura's father, also  threatening the possibility of the family emigrating to New Zealand if the girl is not allowed to sail, since Laura is also a New Zealand citizen. Her solo circumnavigation voyage raised eyebrows even in the liberal Netherlands: the Dutch Child Protection Agency initiated legal steps to thwart her  plans. One of their main arguments is that teenagers want to take after their parents; their personality is not yet evolved. However, feelings began to run high around the problem of school attendance. Perhaps it would have been easier for the family if they had waited a bit longer, since in most rules of law 14-year-olds have the right to enjoy and exercise restricted legal capacity.

Last year was full of sailing records. "It was a crazy 13 months" - said Zac Sunderland of California just after his disembarkation. He set out at the age of 16, and was the youngest person to have solo-circumnavigated the planet, but only for a few weeks only. He twice encountered storms,  and also had a conflict with pirates. His father helped him to repair  damage  to the ship three times. By the time he completed his journey  in July this year, the English Mike Perham, Sunderland's junior by a few months, was already on his way with his quicker ship. He completed his 10-month-voyage in August - although he did not manage to sail around the globe without stopping. In January 2007, at the age of 14, Mike had already sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, ensuring a place for himself in the Guinness book of World Records.

Not a piece of cake

Laura's longing for adventure is quite natural, nevertheless experience shows that crossing the ocean is not a piece of cake. There may always be circumstances in the ocean which it is impossible to be prepared for. Bigger round-the-world competitions are always full of spar, wheel and hulk breakages, and keel problems. . The Formula 1 of these competitions is the Volvo Ocean Race, a team competition organized  every three years, which is a test of willpower, bravery and knowledge, often among waves upto 15 meters high.

In the Vendée Globe solo circumnavigation sailing competitions you cannot even rely onthe support of a team , The route of these races goes across the hard weather conditions of the southern oceans, where there is the highest risk of colliding with icebergs. Competitors are forced to move more to the north, to safer waters by ice gates. The current record time of the Vendée Globe is 84 days. Due to the waves, bone fractures occur quite frequently during the competitions, and once a competitor had to stitch her own tongue back on with a needle used for stitching the bunting, following the medical advice offered by the race doctor over the radio. Aid does not arrive quickly, since ambulance helicopters  cannot cover such distances. The main rule is that one should set out with 120 % of expected food requirements and be prepared for the worst - nevertheless it still happens that competitors nearly die of hunger and are forced to live on algae or kelp near the end of the race.

There are two main routes of nautical world circumnavigation. The shorter route goes through the southern hemisphere and requires the most serious seamanship. Those longing for lighter adventures sail through the warm seas and the Panama Canal. The route and the ship have to be tailored to the personality of the sportsman. Laura Dekker would choose the more peaceful waters. According to experts, her 8-meter-long ship would be difficult to prepare in a way that full control would be in the hands of the girl. It would only be a matter of money She would need to buy a fully equipped, user-friendly ship with automatic hydraulics that can be handled even by a child - as long as the cutting edge technology does not break down.

The first and the fifth movement

Nándor Fa has not chosen the route that goes through the warm seas once out of his three world circumnavigation voyages. "I have a particularly lucky constitution, I am precise and do not panic easily" - says the sportsman, listing the makings needed for such an adventure. He lays down as a rule of thumb: the really good sailor does not survive, but avoids storms. Nowadays outstandingly precise navigation and meteo-tactics help sailors to optimize their route.. This is especially true if the e shortest distance between two points is not a straight line. The difference between an 80-day-long and 130-day-long world circumnavigation can be only a matter of differences in  software. . Nevertheless, the human factor must not be neglected. For example, on the Vendée Globe, Nándor Fa got into a magnetic blind spot, in which the robot pilot did not work, and he had to navigate manually for five days - concentrating on the way up to the crest of 10-meter-high waves and getting seconds of sleep on the way down.

According to him, one out of 10 million teenagers is suitable for such an adventure. "And I question even this" - he adds. Well, one can struggle through the journey by constantly receiving instructions through the radio - but what for? "In my starting off, I had my life's sporting achievements with me" - he says. It is not by chance that though the lower age limit of the Vendée Globe is 20 years, only much older competitors enter it, since experience cannot be scrimped on. Nándor Fa gives the Lake Balaton Circumnavigation Competition he organizes as an example. Although it can be accomplished in just one day, unsuspected events may be experienced even by those who have been sailing on the lake for 60 years.. With today's technical preparedness, a series of mistakes would have to be made for somebody to die on Lake Balaton, but much fewer mistakes are enough to cause injuries to the competitor or damage to the ship. During the night, a ship sailing before the wind may experience an unexpected wind, which needs skill to handle. One must know what the first and the fifth movements are in case of emergency. And even young sportsmen who participated in the Olympic Games, but normally compete on a course and during the day, may lack these automated movements.

Underground cockle-shell

"The saying goes: live slow, sail fast. Contrarily, I did not hurry; I had a break when I needed it, lived among the local people, worked with them. But I wanted to arrive" - said Áron Méder, an electric engineer, who  returned from his round the world voyage after three years in September, at the age of 27. He passed through 40 countries and sailed across three oceans during1091 days. He made the 55 thousand kilometer long journey following the trade-wind belt on his tumble-down boat, the six meters long Carina. Sailors of Lake Balaton watched him preparing for the tour with skepticism, holding the general view that this cockle-shell was not even worth getting out of port, let alone launching into the sea. "This judgment was normal" - admits Méder. Having sailed ten thousand nautical miles and in possession of the adequate diving experience, he looked for a boat that was suitable for the voyage. He bought Carina for the price of a better TV-set and renovated her in 2004. He kept the original 30-year-old sails, , but he had two storm sails made. He did not have a satellite navigation system but maintained communication with the amateur radiomen of the world only once a day, for fear of the battery going flat. As he states, the "underground" mini yacht sailing style he followed is not unknown in other parts of the world - although most people cover only a part of the ocean that way.

"I am not an adventurer, my tour wasn't a suicide mission" - claims the young man and underlines: safety was always his priority. "I looked after the ship and she looked after me. Speed wasn't essential. Carina weighs somewhat more than a ton, is not quick and waves easily broke over the wide board of the boat. Therefore I always had to be on guard, since the hull could easily have filled with water". Even so, Áron Méder says that if one calculates the parameters well, and has a lifejacket with a self rescue dinghy, he cannot get into really big trouble. He tried to eat healthily, but there were times when he ate dried fish or nothing. Having passed the Suez Canal, he had to spend three weeks riding at anchor, living on a minimal amount of water and rice.

Concerning Laura Dekker, he poses the following question: what motivates the girl? Is it her own aspiration to sail round the world, or is she attempting to break the world record with the support of her parents? Áron Méder considers pursuing records a disease of civilized man. He says that younger people adapt easier to unexpected situations than older people, but they are also more sensible. The round-the-globe sailor evokes Jesse Martin, who in 1999, at the age of 18 became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo and owned the title for almost ten years: he finally completed the tour, but all his video messages showed him  crying the whole way. Laura Dekker envisages more or less the same route  Áron Méder chose. This route however goes through the two most hazardous areas endangered by pirates, Somalia and Indonesia. It seems that in connection with Laura, the main question is not whether she can miss one or two years of school, but rather whether she can stay alive or not.