Sailing's Young Braveheart Returns

Seb Clover, the Isle of Wight boy who has become the youngest solo yachtsman to cross the Atlantic, returned home from the West Indies yesterday and said that he was considering sailing around the world.

Having missed a week of term at Ryde school, Seb, who has just turned 16, declared: "I'm looking forward to a bath, to seeing my dog, Bonny, and for my bed. I'm also looking forward to going back to school to see my friends."

Asked about his yachting ambitions as he stepped off the plane at Gatwick airport, he said: "I might do something like sail around the world, but in a faster boat, because the one that I did this trip in does a maximum of 8mph."

Seb, whose father is a sailing instructor, had been training for the voyage since he was 12. He gained his place in the record books by sailing from Tenerife to Antigua in a Contessa 32 boat, arriving last Sunday after he was beaten by his father in a transatlantic race.

"It took 25 days across and just eight hours to get back across by aeroplane, it felt like a very short flight to me."

Seb admitted that he had been overwhelmed by popular interest in his achievement. "I spent 25 days on my own at sea, then, as I sailed around the corner [into English Harbour, Antigua] I was facing so many people and I spent the next few days shaking people's hands.

"I was so surprised, I couldn't walk down the street without being stopped."