13 year old Laura Dekker has been placed under supervision of child wellfare and is not allowed to leave on her world voyage.

The judge had come to the conclusion that it is likely that a 13 year old can not deal with extreme situations that may occur during such a trip.

Laura will be examined by a child psychologist and her parents have not been declared unfit and keep custody over Laura.

I feel unusually mad about this! But why?

I think that no judge should rely on experts that have not circumnavigated themselves. No matter how much you may know about child development, I feel that this matter needs an expert that knows long distance sailing and the kid. And I do not believe that any of those have been involved in this matter.

I still feel that the people that are most fit to judge this are her parents. They have circumnavigated themselves and Laura was born on that trip, in New Zealand.

I wonder if what the "experts" are doing now is actually worse than letting her go!

Imagine, being stopped doing what is at the top of your dreamlist! And then having to go trough extensive examinations by "professionals" who are likely to be biased.

Laura's lawyer made the comparison with a young chess player. He has to start young to have any chance of becoming successful. So do young musicians. Should Laura be stopped in HER development just because "the sea is a dangerous place"? As far as I could make out from all the messages she already has more solo myles under her keel than most adults ever get.

I think this is the biggest mistake ever made in the history of Child wellfare in the Netherlands. There is still so much to put right in families where stuff is actually going wrong that I feel it is an embarrassing waste of time and resouces on preventing a kid from doing stuff that may result in a truly great person just because things MAY go wrong!

Laura was not at the ruling today, she went sailing to be away from the media attention.

I hope she has actually left.

Laura, have a great trip!