Offshore sailor

Solo AROUNd the woRld

Follow my journey around the globe

I'm Brian Gray, a dentist by profession and a sailor by passion. I’m 66 now, and at 16, I made myself a promise: one day, I would sail around the world.

Now I'm about to keep it. Some people call it crazy. I call it the next chapter.

Back then nobody I knew had ever sailed, so I taught myself. Fifty years and more than 30,000 miles later, I'm about to take on the biggest challenge of my sailing life.

In October 2027, I'll set off from Vigo, Spain, solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world in the Global Solo Challenge, aboard my boat Kawan. Engineered to Endure is the story of what it takes to get there, and you're invited to follow along.

"I didn't know why, but I knew that I had to do it."

- Brian gray at 16

Global Solo Challenge

A solo, nonstop, unassisted race around the world. It starts and finishes in Vigo, Spain, and takes the toughest route there is: past the three great capes, including Cape Horn, through the Southern Ocean and around Antarctica.

MORE ABOUT GSC

In October 2027, I'll be one of them, aboard my Class40 Kawan.

My Boat Kawan

A Pogo 40S, Class40, designed by Finot-Conq and built in France in 2007. Kawan already knows the way around the world: she finished the last Global Solo Challenge in fifth place. Her name means "friend" in Indonesian, and after a refit in Kiel, Germany, she's getting ready for her second lap of the planet.

40 ft · 4,750 kg · up to 275 m² of sail

I've listened to every episode of The Outlaw Ocean Podcast.

The ocean covers most of our planet, yet so much of what happens out there stays untold: forced labour on fishing vessels, illegal fishing, pollution. The Outlaw Ocean Project brings these stories to light, often reporting from the water itself. I want more people to know about them. So I'll carry their message with me, all the way around.