Round-world youth pulls out of Bligh mission

A teenager who became the world's youngest solo circumnavigator has pulled out of his latest challenge and is being replaced by a sailing novice.

Mike Perham, 18, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, was struck down by with appendicitis and had to withdraw from a bid to recreate Captain William Bligh's 4,000-mile open boat voyage .

Following a global search 18-year-old gap year student Chris Wilde, from Warwick, answered an appeal to take his place in the four-man crew.

Despite having no previous sailing experience and receiving a week's notice of the challenge, Mr Wilde decided to take part in what is said to be the first authentic recreation of one of the greatest open boat voyages.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," he said. "To make an epic voyage no one has undertaken in 221 years, to be a part of something legendary and to push myself to my physical and mental limits, that's a chance you don't often get. Plus, I'm inspired by people that do incredible things."

He will be joined by Australians Don McIntyre, 55, and Dave Pryce, 39, along with David Wilkinson, 48, an Englishman who has lived in Hong Kong for the past 17 years.

The seven-week expedition on the Talisker Bounty Boat, a 25ft long, 7ft wide, open wooden vessel, starts on April 28.

The crew, who hope to raise about 150,000 for The Sheffield Institute Foundation for Motor Neurone Disease, will sail across the Pacific from Tonga to Timor.

Bligh and loyal crew members were cast adrift from HMS Bounty by mutineers in 1789, in the middle of the Pacific without charts and only enough food and water for two weeks.