Photo: Kyodo News helicopter

Japan Today reports that 24 year old, Hirotsugu Kimura, has become the youngest Japanese to complete a solo voyage around the world on a sailboat without making any port calls or receiving supplies; breaking a thirty-year-old record.

Kimura, a former Maritime Self-Defense Force member, reached his goal off Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan, after 231 days. This was his second attempt after one in 2022 was marred by mechanical failure.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Kimura said the reality of his achievement was slowly setting in. “My sense of happiness and relief at achieving my goal is getting stronger,” he said.

Marine adventurer Kojiro Shiraishi set the previous record in 1994 at the age of 26 years and 10 months. Shiraishi at the time was also the youngest person in the world to circumnavigate the globe by yacht.

His record also drew praise from Japanese adventurer Kenichi Horie, 85, who became the oldest person to complete a solo, nonstop voyage across the Pacific in 2022 at age 83.

“I hope he can one day aim to be the oldest person to sail nonstop around the world,” the veteran sailor said at a ceremony to mark Kimura’s return to port.

Kimura served as an MSDF submariner prior to joining an industrial waste treatment company in 2020 that supported his circumnavigation bid.

Kimura departed from Nishinomiya in Hyogo Prefecture on Oct. 22 and headed south in the Pacific, rounding Cape Horn in Chile and skirting the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa and Australia before returning to Japan.