Schoolboy, 15, youngest ever to sail solo around Britain
A TEENAGE boy has become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate Britain, at the age of 15.
Timothy Long yesterday arrived into port at the Hamble Point Marina, Hants, after a 1,600-mile solo journey that took 11 weeks to complete.
He undertook the arduous voyage single-handedly on Alchemy, his 28ft Hunter Impala boat, and braved giant waves and gale-force winds, sometimes on as little as 20 minutes’ sleep.
The young sailor was raising money for the Ellen Macarthur Cancer Trust and even met Dame Ellen, one of his heroes, on the final leg of his journey.
Timothy covered an average of 50 miles a day, but with several much longer passages of up to 100 miles, largely following the route Dame Ellen herself took on as an 18-year-old in 1995.
He has raised more than £7,000 for the trust, which helps young people recovering from cancer to rebuild their confidence through sailing.
The teenager was welcomed back to shore by his family shortly before 11am.
“This is by far the hardest thing that I have ever done because when you are solo sailing there is no one there to help – no support boat, nothing,” he later wrote on his Justgiving page.
“This means that you have to be able to do everything, ranging from navigation to looking after yourself and knowing how to fix anything that goes wrong on the boat.
“The British coastline presents numerous hazards, from the busiest shipping lane in the world in the Dover Straits, to the extreme tides of the Bristol Channel, amongst many others.”
‘This is the hardest thing I have ever done because there is no one there to help – no support boat, nothing’
His record-breaking journey had not been without some early complications, however.
Shortly after setting off on the first day of his expedition in July, Timothy was forced to call for his mother’s help – after getting into difficulty while preparing pasta.
To make matters worse, the schoolboy was said to have managed to spill pasta sauce as he took cooking instructions over the phone from his mother.
Dame Ellen paid tribute to Timothy yesterday, saying: “It is an incredible achievement for anyone to sail singlehanded around the UK, but to do it at 15 really is something else.”