Adam Waugh embarked on a round-the-world adventure alone on a boat he built from scratch with no experience
18:00, 06 Apr 2026
Adam Waugh on his boat ‘Little Wren’, which he built from scratch, at Amble Marina in Northumberland(Image: Iain Buist )
Having spent approximately 250 days alone at sea on a 19ft yacht, Adam Waugh has experienced rough seas, rare sights, and a rather repetitive diet. In January 2025, the 61-year-old, from Angerton, Northumberland, set sail around the world in a boat he constructed himself, despite having no previous boatbuilding experience.
The voyage, which was part of the inaugural Mini Globe Race, took Adam to Antigua, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific Ocean, with stops in the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, and Fiji. He then crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the southern tip of Africa, and continued across the Atlantic via Saint Helena and Recife, Brazil, before completing the final leg back to Antigua.
It’s a 28,000 nautical mile trip that could see him sailing alone for up to five-and-a-half-weeks at a time, with only himself and his boat, Little Wren, for company.
Adam said: “I think we had a total of about 250 days at sea and there was an awful lot of hot weather [temperatures up to around 40C] because we were sailing very close to the equator a lot of the time.
“There were no creature comforts, no air conditioning, or fridge or anything like that, so we just had to put up with the conditions that we got. The size of the boat and the conditions we were sailing in were tricky.”
Adam described his living space at that time as “about the size of a saloon car,” meaning he had little room to move around and resulted in him losing muscle mass during the sails.
He added: “My legs and upper body lost a lot of muscle so when I got off the boat I wasn’t able to walk very far. The longest passage I did was five-and-a-half weeks and after that it did take me a couple of days before I could walk about 50 yards.”
But despite the challenges, Adam says he coped “fine” with everything thrown his way, aside from the heat. He felt the sail over to Antigua was the most challenging journey as it was his first ocean crossing on Little Wren, and “we were both getting to know each other”.
Adam said: “I had an accident and broke some ribs coming across the Atlantic so that was the worst accident I had had all the way round. I learnt an awful lot about how to sail the boat and how to provision properly and how to deal with the conditions.
“So from Antigua onwards I wouldn’t say the conditions were any easier, but I was better equipped to deal with them and more experienced.”
Looking back on the voyage, Adam said, “There were some wonderful highs and some difficult lows,” adding, “The highlights have been all the wildlife I saw, I saw killer whales, lots of different types of whales and some amazing seabirds, albatrosses, things you only really see when you’re in that part of the world.
“I stopped at 16 different countries on the way round – lots of very small islands only inhabited by a few hundred people. You can only get there by boat, there are no airstrips or anything like that.”
He added: “I only saw one killer whale but it got extremely close, I could have touched its nose when it came out of the water. They’re very inquisitive, and because a sailing boat has a big runner under the water and it also has a big keel I think they just don’t know what it is and they want to have a good look.
“There are some pods of killer whales that do do damage to boats but they seem to be around the south coast of Portugal. I haven’t heard of any damage in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where I was but having said that, I did hold my breath a bit when it was circling the boat and I was very pleased to see the back of it.”
Adam said that during the journey he would buy fresh food at each stop along the route if possible, but his diet generally consisted of powdered milk for teas and coffees, and muesli for breakfast, a tin of tuna for lunch and “something else out of a tin in the evening”.
He added: “Some of the other racers used dried food which I didn’t like as much but it was a bit lighter and you always have to keep the weight off the boat if you can. But there were a lot of tins. I had 57 tins of sardines in a row and I couldn’t look at another tin of sardines – and I still can’t. I loved them in the beginning, but now even saying the name makes me feel a bit queasy.”
Reflecting on what it was like to sail the world alone, Adam said: “Most of the time it was okay but there were times when I found it difficult. I wouldn’t say I ever got lonely but I did miss people and the interaction. The only person I could talk to was myself so I did that quite a lot.
“You knew that generally you were only a few weeks away from seeing people. A few times it was months, but generally it was weeks. The isolation was difficult and at times very difficult, but you had nowhere to go. You can’t just hail a taxi so you just have to get through it.”
Adam completed the race on March 9 and arrived back home on Wednesday (April 1), were he got to meet his one-month-old grandson, Jack, for the first time. Meanwhile, Little Wren made her journey back to Southampton via a cargo carrier.
She will return to Northumberland with Adam for now but it’s expected that they will part ways in the near future as Adam has listed the boat for sale as Little Wren “can’t just sit around”. He added: “She’s not really built and designed for pottering around during the day as a day sailing. She needs to do what she’s designed to do.
“I’ve had a lot of fun with her and it will be a chance for somebody else to do the same thing. It will be a very emotional moment. We have a hell of a bond and we talk to each other a lot so it will be very tricky.”
Throughout the voyage, Adam has been raising funds for the Ella Dawson Foundation, a UK charity supporting young adults living with and beyond cancer, and their families and carers. So far, he has raised over £60,000 towards his £100,000 target. But he is determined to continue fundraising to reach his target.
Adam added: “It’s helped me a lot supporting the charity. There were times I felt like I might want to give up. But knowing that I was raising a lot of money for a great concern helped me to push through. That’s been a big part of it.”
To follow Adam’s journey or donate visit this link.
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