Lovesick teenager sailed for France in 10ft boat

A TEENAGER was so desperate to see a French schoolgirl he had fallen in love with that he stole a 10ft inflatable boat and tried to cross the Channel in it, a court was told yesterday.

David Burnett, 18, a boat worker from Falmouth, Cornwall, planned to use a diary map to navigate across some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. When he came alongside a trawler 25 miles out from the English coast, he asked whether he was going in the right direction for France but found that he was heading out into the Atlantic.

The trawler took him back to Falmouth, where he was arrested, Truro Crown Court was told.

Ian Taylor, for the prosecution, said Burnett met a French schoolgirl when she was on a study course in Falmouth and was keen to see her again. 'But the only way he could get across the Channel was to take a boat.'

He stole a pounds 3,200 boat from the Penryn river and set off, taking with him a holdhall with a spare pair of shoes, a sandwich and a sports diary with a map of the world. Worried friends alerted coastguards after Burnett told them his plans and an alert was broadcast to shipping.

Sentence on Burnett, who admitted taking a boat without consent, was adjourned for two weeks.