Atlantic Sailing Challenge
When I was 14 years old, I became the youngest person ever to sail single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean in January 2007 and wow what an adventure that was! The trip took 6 weeks and covered over 3,500 miles.
I set sail from Gibraltar in a Tide 28 cruising yacht and with my dad sailing an indentical yacht too,we were really going as a pair of single-handers.
©Mike Perham 2010
We had to pull in for repairs to the self steering systems and to collect new satellite phones in Lanzarote and the Cape Verde Islands. These were such fantastic places to visit and I vividly remember sailing into the cape verde islands with their barren clifts surounding them. We did see some rather interesting conditions along the way and it was my first real experience of being in a good old ding-dong gale on my own. I loved the feeling of exileration.
On the 3rd of January at 10am I sailed into English Harbour, Antigua, and wow what an incredible feeling that was! I'd crossed my first ocean on my own and I just wanted to do more. For certain, no one could take the grin off my face that day.
©Mike Perham 2010
The crossing developed a huge amount of media interest and never in my wildest dreams had I expected to be on the front page of every national paper the following day!
©Mike Perham 2010
I was presented with the Medal for meritorious conduct from the Scout Association, several sporting awards and a certificate from Guinness World Records which was presented by the shadow sports minister at the Houses of Parliament, London. It was so fantastic to finally hold that certidicate after all the hard work we had put in.
Then everybody started asking... what's next?
This is what the BBC wrote:
Wednesday, 3 January 2007, 18:06 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/6226775.stm
Teen sails into record books. CBBC News Wednesday January 03 2007 14:44 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6220000/newsid_6228300/6228349.stm
Teen sailor attempts world record. Friday November 17 2006 07:35 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6150000/newsid_6157000/6157016.stm
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