KEY POINTS:
The teenage daughter of a former Team New Zealand sail designer has died while working in a refugee village in India.
Hope Louise Ickert, who had been living with her parents in Valencia for about a year, was reportedly electrocuted after touching live wires on August 14.
The 17-year-old died in the hostel of a catering college in Sivakasi in southern India in what her mother Hannah Ickert told the Herald was a "completely accidental" incident.
Hope was on her fifth day of a two-week course with a volunteer agency Projects Abroad, the headquarters of which are in Britain.
The family are awaiting an inquest into the death.
They collected her body last week and took her to Parnell in Auckland where a funeral will be held today.
Hope is the daughter of Mickey Ickert, who was part of the winning 1995 America's Cup challenger Team New Zealand as the downwind sail designer.
Born in Germany, Ickert's sailmaking career began at North Sails Germany. In 1989 he moved to New Zealand where he worked for North Sails in Auckland.
He was a key figure in developing sails for round-the-world teams and international offshore racing boats. In 2000 he become head sail designer for American syndicate BMW Oracle Racing. He is now based at North Sails in Spain.
He has also represented Germany in Finn Class dinghies and is a past holder of European titles in small keelboats.
Hope, a former ACG Senior College student, left New Zealand with her parents last year after Year 11.
ACG Senior College principal Kathy Parker said: "She was a really spirited young woman. She loved art, had really, really strong friendship groups and our students are very dismayed to hear what has happened.
"Our school is deeply saddened to have lost a young person. We think it's just tragic."
A death notice paid homage to the well-travelled student: "In memory around the world, Auckland, Parakia, Whangarei, Nelson, Berlin, London, Valencia, Ventura, Melbourne, Mehlmeisel, Prien, Phoenix and Brittany."
A message from a friend called Francesca on the social networking site Bebo said: "RIP Hope Ickert ... loved u ta bits."
