Dick Dekker, left, his daughter Laura Dekker, centre, and her lawyer, Peter de Lange, hold a news conference Aug. 24 in a courtroom in Utrecht, Netherlands. (Bart Muhl/Associated Press)

The mother of a 13-year-old Dutch girl says she doesn't support her daughter's bid to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world.

Babs Muller told the Dutch daily newspaper Volkskrant that she had kept quiet on the issue until now because her daughter, Laura Dekker, had threatened not to see her again if she tried to foil the trip.

"If it were up to me, Laura wouldn't go," Muller said in an interview.

"She can sail like the devil; that's not the problem, … [but she] is not yet grown up."

On Aug. 28, a Dutch court granted the state temporary custody of the girl to delay her voyage. Dekker had planned to start her trip this month and to take two years to circumnavigate the world on an eight-metre boat named Guppy.

The Utrecht District Court ordered state child care authorities to take responsibility of Dekker for two months while she undergoes an assessment by a child psychologist.

Dekker's German mother, who lives in the Netherlands, divorced the girl's Dutch father, Dick, when Laura was six years old. The girl lives full time with her father.

Until Saturday, it had appeared that both parents supported the girl's ambitions, but Muller said that is not the case.

"It breaks my heart that I may lose contact with her," she said. "I have never had to take such a difficult decision … but I would rather [have] a living daughter that I did not see than a dead one."

The Dutch court will issue a second ruling Oct. 26 on whether to extend the Council for Child Protection's responsibility for the teenager, who will have celebrated her 14th birthday by then.