Michael Perham, who became the youngest person to cross the Atlantic alone when he was 14, set sail from Portsmouth harbor on Saturday, trying to become the youngest person to sail solo around the word.
He will cover 21,600 nautical miles, crossing every single line of longitude and the equator, in four and a half months, and his only contact with family members back home will be limited to brief satellie conversations. Perham is expectwd back in Portsmouth in March around his 17th birthday.
"I'm a little bit nervous but otherwise really, really excited," Perham said before sail, admitting that the voyage was "a little crazy".
After managing to cross the Atlantic alone, he immediately began planning to break the round-the-world record as well. The current record holder is Australian Jessie Martin, who set the feat aged 18 in 1999.
Perham will sail along the African coast before crossing the Pacific and Southern Oceans via the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, Cape Leeuwin in Australia, and Cape Horn in South America, according to his website.