ROUND the world sailor Tony Meakin set off with the tide from Lydney Docks on Saturday for another global adventure – and this time he is taking an apprentice!

Chris Everal of Evesham will be joining Tony on the first leg of the journey to learn more about sailing in open water.

Tony said: "Chris is a good skipper and helmsman in his own right, but he hasn't done much sailing away from the British Isles. He is doing the Atlantic crossing with me to see whether he enjoys it."

Chris retired recently and is looking forward to spending winter in the Caribbean. If he enjoys his experiences he will be coming home to collect his boat Sarah Noel and set off alone.

"He says he wants a wardrobe on board for him to hide in if the weather gets too bad!" added Tony.

And Tony has plenty of experience to pass on to Chris after completing a single-handed sailing trip around the world last year.

The pair set sail in Tony's 10-metre boat the Cariad (which means 'sweetheart' in Welsh) on Saturday evening with a send off from friends and family at the Yacht Club.

The first leg is down the coast of Africa to Gibraltar, to the Cape Verde Islands and then across the Atlantic Ocean.

The global economic downturn has brought some advantages – Tony says he feels a little safer in open water now as there are fewer container ships transporting goods!

He said: "I am 67 now and I have nothing to lose! The risk you run at sea against the risk of being killed on the roads is very much smaller."

The political situation in the UK has helped to drive Tony back to sea, he claims. "Unless this country improves dramatically, I don't know if I ever want to come back. It is like something from 1984 here now with people watching all the time.

"Everything you do is recorded, your GPS position is recorded through your mobile phone, CCTV cameras are everywhere, there is no privacy."

So Tony has decided to break away from Western living and explore the South Pacific again which he says is one of the only unspoiled places left in the world.

"I would like to go back to Fiji, though there has been a big coup since I was there last and things might have changed," he said.

"What people don't realise is that it is actually cheaper to live on a boat and travel the world than it is to live in this country.

"You can live really well on £100 a week in Fiji – the only problem for them is the cost of fuel and they are working on a biofuel using coconuts which I might look into.

"I want to see the bits of the world I missed and I have no desire to go around the world single-handed again – I have nothing to prove.

"What I really enjoy is meeting the community of people drifting around the world."

Tony's brother Keith and sister-in-law Pam Meakin have been sailing around the world since June 2006, but have only got to Tunisia so far! They plan to spend the winter in Croatia.

To follow Tony's journey online visit www. meakinsworld.org.uk