In the Summer of 2004, I left Portsmouth, UK on one of the 12 yachts competing in the Global Challenge yacht race – a 10-month 30,000 nautical mile circumnavigation of the globe going westabout, against the prevailing tides and currents.  We raced over 8 legs from Portsmouth to Buenos Aires, around Cape Horn, on to Wellington, Sydney, Cape Town, Boston, La Rochelle and back to Portsmouth.  The longest time at sea was approximately 39 days.

More people have scaled Mount Everest than sailed around the world, never mind going the ‘wrong way’ around.  At certain stages of the race, the nearest human being to us was on the International Space Station, not on dry land.