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Sailing into record books, again

Giles Tremlett

British yachtsman completes his second solo voyage around the world

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

Bilbao: Grizzled and tired but still fighting fit, veteran British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston sailed into port in northern Spain on Friday to complete his second solo voyage around the world.

The man who in 1969 became the first single-handed yachtsman to circumnavigate the globe without touching dry land celebrated his repeat performance at the age of 68 with a medicinal swig from a whisky bottle and dockside embraces from his brothers.

Mr. Knox-Johnston's 60ft yacht, Saga Insurance, appeared out of the mist on Friday morning and headed for the finishing line at the mouth of the River Nervion after 159 days dodging gales and container ships on the oceans.

Foghorns blared and a flotilla of boats bobbed around him as, arms raised in triumph, he crossed the line towards possible third place in the final leg of the Velux 5 Oceans round-the-world race.

It was the end of a gruelling trip that started in this same port last October and included two stop-offs in Australia and the United States.

On this trip, Mr. Knox-Johnston has almost halved the 312 days it took him to get around the globe on his first, and epic trip between June 1968 and April 1969.

A race which two British yachtsmen Mike Golding and Alex Thomson were forced to abandon, Mr. Knox-Johnston also set a new record as the oldest yachtsmen to have sailed around the world in racing conditions.

This time his yacht, hailed as the yachting equivalent of a Formula 1 racing car, bristled with computer and radar equipment, but Mr. Knox-Johnston said he would rather have sailed the old way. "I wish we could uninvent these wretched computer programmes. They are inefficient," he said.

The scariest moments on the voyage came as his yacht was battered by gales or looked as though it was about to be run down by container vessels.

He found the seas both cleaner than 38 years ago and oddly bereft of animal life. "Last time I sailed right past a blue whale," he said. "This time I haven't seen any."

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

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