That became the record sailor Laura Dekker - what she would do differently today

Created: 12/27/2021, 5:09 PM

Laura Dekker sailed around the world at the age of fourteen.

Today she owns a school boat.

(Archive image) © Hein Hartmann / Imago

In her youth, Laura Dekker became the youngest solo circumnavigator in history.

A year ago she fulfilled another dream.

Munich - Laura Dekker is the youngest solo circumnavigator in the world.

At the age of fourteen she started around the world on her boat "Guppy" from Gibraltar.

Your trip around the world was followed around the world.

Today, the now 26-year-old has her own school boat and sails around the world with it - her husband and child are now by her side.

The youngest circumnavigator in history: Laura Dekker opens her own training ship

Laura Dekker wrote history in August 2010: at the age of fourteen, she started her world tour as the youngest solo sailor in the world.

A year and a half later, on January 21, 2012, Dekker finished the trip on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten.

But the road to circumnavigate the world was rocky: a court order prevented the teenage girl from setting sail in 2009 and temporarily withdrew custody of her parents.

The case was discussed all over the world: Can a teenager sail around the world alone?

Can the state intervene here?

Dekker's trip around the world was now ten years ago.

After her return, the sailor wrote a book and gave lectures around the world.

Dekker already had a new dream in mind that she wanted to fulfill: her own training ship.

In 2020 she fulfilled this dream and has been on the high seas with up to ten teenagers since then.

Dekker ten years after circumnavigating the world: "I don't want to change who I am now"

To this day, Dekker does not regret her circumnavigation of the world, as she said in an interview with

: "The older I get, the more thankful I am for this trip and the more I understand how much I learned back then." The 26-year-old has then found out what made her happy and what she was good at.

“That still helps me today, every day.” Now she wants to share this experience and her knowledge with others: and enables other young people to sail around the world.

In 2010 Laura Dekker began her circumnavigation of the world.

(Archive image) © dpa

Nevertheless, Dekker sees her world tour from a different perspective today: As the mother of a three-year-old son, Dekker has great respect for her father, who allowed her to travel.

“Letting your child go like this is not easy at all.

You actually want to protect it and hope that it will stay there forever.

But you have to let children go, ”explains the sailor.

Dekker also has no regrets that she missed the end of her school days: After her expedition, she finished school in New Zealand.

“I don't want to change who I am now,” is Dekker's conclusion.

Laura Dekker: The sailor would do it differently today

But there is one thing that she has long struggled with: “I don't know why people want to be famous. Everyone recognizes you, everyone has an opinion about you and read something about you, ”said the 26-year-old in an interview. For them, the public attention never felt good. "I always only wanted to sail."

But there is one thing she would do differently today: "I would no longer sail around the world alone," says Dekker.

She made her trip at the perfect time, affirmed the sailor.

But now she's enjoying being with people.

“For a lot of people, my life is sure to be strange.

I don't earn a lot of money, I live in the smallest cabin on board, I don't have a career goal. ”But she could do all of this with her partner, watch her son grow up and sail with teenagers.

"For me personally it is the perfect life."