I will never forget the feeling of walking into my home, a place that while drifting helpless in the middle of the Indian Ocean I wondered if I would ever see again.

The things that happen on the sea take you beyond yourself, beyond human capability.

Slowly, my brain let me in on the fact that I had just come this close to dying.

I'm one-hundred-fifty miles off Cape Horn, both autopilots are broken, and my boat is drifting toward one of the nastiest chunks of ocean on the face of the earth.

I knew that even if I was able to call for help, I was in a place so remote that it wasn't likely there would be anyone who could help me. And even if there were, it could take weeks.

I wanted to break the record, of course, and become the youngest person to sail around the world solo and unassisted.

In that moment it dawned on me that everything has to line up perfectly for something to turn out this awful.