My only regret at news that a 13-year-old girl is hoping to become the youngest person to sail solo round the world, is that I didn’t take my wife – while pregnant with my son Richard – on a circumnavigation.

Had I done so it would have put an end to this astonishing limbo dance performed by would-be globe-girdlers with the pole getting lower each time.

Then again poor Richard would now be under threat of having his engraved Perspex trophy snatched away by the first assisted test-tube baby to sail round the world, or the first IVF-treated hopeful mum, or even the first person to sail Suhaili around the world alone with a phial of Mike Perham’s semen caulked into her garboard.

But then again he could go round stern first.

No, that would be no good either as then the first test tube baby etc could still go round stern first, the wrong way.

Or laterally.

Or diagonally. Or via the NE or NW Passage…