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Mike left England on November 15, 2008, in his 50 ft racing boat intending to sail non-stop and unassisted below both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.However, before he had even reached the Canary Islands, problems with his autohelm forced him to stop. The problems with his boat's electrics have continued, but Mike has weathered all, stopping in Capetown and New Zealand, and finally returning via the Panama Canal instead of the more difficult journey around Cape Horn.
He hopes to sail his Open 50 boat TotallyMoney.com into Portsmouth in about two weeks to claim the record. His journey, on a much faster boat, will have taken him under nine months, whereas Zac's journey was a comparatively long 13 months.
Mike first hit the headlines two years ago when he became the youngest person ever to sail across the Atlantic single-handed at the age of 14. When he undertook that journey, his father sailed out of reach behind him, but this time there was not the luxury of help near at hand.
A third teen competitor, 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson, intends to commence her own solo journey later this year, again trying for the non-stop unassisted record, which is still held by her compatriot, Jesse Martin, who completed his own solo circumnavigation at the age of 18 in 1999.
