A Pembrokeshire man has set off on the challenge of a lifetime and is currently sailing in a round the world clipper yacht race.

Gareth Rees, of Lamphey, is a former pupil of the bilingual Welsh units at Golden Manor Infants and Grove Junior Schools in Pembroke and later at the bilingual school Ysgol Gyfun Bro Myrddin in Carmarthen.

He played rugby for Grove, Pembroke RFC Youth, Pembrokeshire county schools, Ysgol Gyfun Bro Myrddin, Carmarthen district schools teams and also for his university rugby team at Cardiff business school.

He is due back in UK in July, after setting off from Hull in September last year.

Gareth has always had an adventurous spirit having been up Snowdon at aged four. In the last few years he has walked the Inca Trail up to Machu Pichu, in Peru, taken up scuba diving, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (the highest mountain in Africa) and the highest walkable mountain in the world.

He gave up his job as assistant company treasurer at Marks and Spencer headquarters in London to embark on his latest adventure, The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

The race is organised by a company set up by Sir Robin Knox-Johnson, the first person to sail single-handed around the world, and takes place every other year.

It comprises ten yachts each with a crew of 18, and they travel about 35,000 miles as they race and circumnavigate the globe.

They’ll visit places such as La Rochelle, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Geraldton (Western Australia), Singapore, Quingdao (P. R. China), California, Panama, Jamaica, New York, Cape Breton Island (Nova Scotia) Ireland, and back to the UK.

As the race progresses they will have sailed the Atlantic, Southern, Indian, and Pacific oceans, the South China Sea and through the Panama Canal.

Many people have signed up for one or a few of the legs, Gareth has signed up for the complete race around the world. He is one of the crew on board the yacht Spirit of Australia, but he insists he is still “Y Cymro” at heart.

Gareth reported on the start of the race from Hull in September.