Sailing into the record books: after six weeks of sailing alone at sea, a teenager sets a new world record

On January 3, 2007, Michael Perham, a 14-year-old from Potters Bar, England, steered his sailboat into the harbor off the Caribbean island of Antigua. He was greeted by a cheering crowd, a steel band, and a mob of photographers snapping his picture. After traveling for six weeks and crossing 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of water, the teen had just become the youngest person to sail solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Michael doesn't even have a license to drive a cal, but he's been sailing since he was 7. Despite all his experience, sailing an entire ocean alone was a daunting--and dangerous--undertaking. Michael didn't get any help when it came to navigating the open sea. But his father, Peter, was always nearby. He followed Michael in his own sailboat and kept in radio contact with his son during the entire voyage.

SETTING SAIL

On November 18, 2006, Michael started his journey from Gibraltar, a territory of the United Kingdom (see map, above). Michael captained the Cheeky Monkey, his 8.5 meter (28 foot)-long sailboat that he and his father helped design. The boat was stocked with everything he'd need for the long journey--food, freshwater, a satellite phone to receive weather reports and speak to his mom and sister back home, clean clothes, and even some schoolwork.

To cross the Atlantic, Michael followed the same trade wind route used for centuries by seafarers traveling from Europe to America. The route follows the path of trade winds that blow steadily in one direction near the equator (the imaginary line that horizontally circles the center of Earth).

"Wind is the driving force behind sailing," says Michael. "It pushes the sails, which pushes the boat." By continually adjusting his two sails throughout the day to catch as much wind as possible, Michael kept his boat moving. At one time he reached speeds of 18 knots, the unit used to measure speed at sea. That's about 32 km (20 mi) per hour.

Besides the wind, his boat also got an extra boost of speed of between 1 to 3 knots from the ocean's surface currents, says Joseph Sienkiewicz, the science and operations officer at NOAA's Ocean Prediction Center. These streamlike movements of water circulate throughout the world's oceans. They're caused by winds pushing water along in the same direction as the winds are blowing. "Since trade winds in the Atlantic blow from the northeast to the southwest, Michael was able to ride the Canary Current southward and the North Equatorial Current westward during his trip," says Sienkiewicz (see map, above).

STORMY SEAS

But it wasn't always smooth sailing. "On windless days the boat was hardly moving at all, and all [I] could do was wait," says Michael. At other times, storms pounded his small yacht with gale force winds. These powerful winds blow between 40 and 47 knots and can whip up huge waves. Michael's sailboat was tossed by ocean waves between 6 and 7.6 meters (20 and 25 feet) high. That's about the height of a typical house. These conditions could damage a sailboat's mast and sails. And an even greater threat? Rough waves could cause the boat to capsize, or tip over.

Although Michael timed his solo crossing to avoid hurricane season in the Atlantic, winter storms farther north of his sailing route were just getting under way. These storms produce gently rolling waves, called swells, that can travel the entire length of the Atlantic Ocean. "Swells usually keep going until they run out of ocean and end up on a beach," says Sienkiewicz. While Michael was at sea, he constantly felt the waves going up and down. It was fun "surfing" his boat down the side of big waves, but, "sailing up the wave was a bit like trying to run uphill," says Michael.

ISLAND PIT STOP

Michael spent some of his time at sea like any typical teenager, talking on the phone to friends, reading, and playing his music. But mostly the trip was hard work. At night, Michael and his dad took turns keeping watch in one hour shifts for any large ships that might collide with their sailboats in the dark.

Michael also had to repair things on his boat to make sure his vessel stayed in working order. At one time, his boat's self-steering mechanism broke. He had to manually steer his boat in the right direction day and night for three days. Breakdowns like this one forced Michael and his dad to make two unscheduled stops for repairs at the Canary Islands and Cape Verde.

LAND AHOY!

Michael had hoped it would take only four weeks to make the trip from Gibraltar to the Caribbean. But the delays set the journey back by more than two weeks. That meant he and his father had to spend Christmas on their own at sea. To observe the holiday, they both set off celebratory flares and sang carols over their radios. Nine days later, they finally reached Antigua.

The hardest part of the trip wasn't surviving on canned food or not being able to have a shower the entire time, but being away from friends and family for so long, says Michael. Now back home, he's been getting back into a normal routine, and is already planning an even bigger adventure. "There's the possibility of a 'round-the-world trip in the future," he says. "That would set a new record for the youngest person to sail around the world single-handed."