Whangarei born sailor youngest circumnavigator

A Whangarei-born, Netherlands-based schoolgirl is days away from becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the world solo and has torn down the Dutch flag from her boat and replaced it with the New Zealand one.

Laura Dekker, 16, who was born on her parents' yacht when it was moored at the Whangarei Town Basin, is on the final leg of the journey and is expected to reach the Dutch Caribbean island of St Maarten on January 24, completing the journey she began from the island in August 2010.

She is set become the youngest person to circumnavigate the world solo and has torn down the Dutch flag and replaced it with a New Zealand one on her 38-foot yacht named Guppy, after disagreements over her education.

Her lawyer, Peter De Lange, told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant truancy officers issued her father a summons to appear late last year after a newspaper quoted her as saying she had not been giving her studies full attention while on the voyage.

Mr De Lange said the report was a misunderstanding, based on her saying she needed to concentrate on sailing while weather in the Atlantic was poor. When her father refused to turn up, the truancy agency notified child-protective services, infuriating the family, he said.

"Who knows, maybe they'll be waiting for her with handcuffs at the finish line," Mr De Lange said.

A Dutch court originally blocked Dekker's voyage and permitted her to set off only after she bought a bigger, sturdier boat than the one she originally planned to use; fitted it with advanced navigation and radar equipment; enrolled in a special correspondence school; and took courses in first aid and coping with sleep deprivation.

Mr De Lange said Dekker planned to return to school, although she was considering relocating to New Zealand. She is a New Zealand citizen.

While she is aligning herself more to her birth country, her Australian manager, Lyall Mercer, complained in August she had "failed to find any support from New Zealand" and had then been unable to source a New Zealand flag to fly from Guppy.

The teenager, who holds New Zealand, Dutch and German citizenship, had a difficult task before starting her record-breaking attempt, which she began aged 14.

She originally had wanted to leave aged 13 but was prevented from doing so after Dutch authorities intervened and placed her under a supervision order.

She initially breached the court order and ran away to the Dutch Caribbean island territory of St Maarten but was escorted back to her home.APNZ