IT WAS the homecoming he dreamed of when he was lying in bed at night as a teenager.

Adrian Flanagan had imagined one day returning to British shores with the might of the Royal Navy at his side after sailing around the world.

And yesterday that boyhood dream became reality when the 47-year-old from Ludgershall, near Bicester, made a triumphant return home after his two-and-half-year voyage.

The father-of-two has sailed into the record books by becoming the first sailor to circumnavigate the world solo through the Arctic.

Mr Flanagan set out in October 2005 aiming to become the first to sail a 30,000-mile vertical circumnavigation westwards via Cape Horn and the Russian Arctic.

And at about 11am yesterday he arrived at Hamble in Hampshire after 405 days at sea in his 38ft stainless steel sloop Barrabas.

His ex-wife Louise, who managed the challenge, and the couple's two children, Benjamin, nine, and Gabriel, six, were among those at The Royal Southern Yacht Club to welcome him home.

Mr Flanagan said: "I'm pleased to be here, it's great. Doing what I did was something I had to do and I had pursued it since childhood."

During the voyage, the former business development manager and qualified osteopath survived being swept overboard, was tracked by pirates off Brazil and faced severe storms around notorious Cape Horn.

Mr Flanagan completed the voyage without a major sponsor and his boat is now up for sale.

He said: "I feel huge pride in my yacht. She's seen me through fair weather and foul. As the first British-flagged yacht to enter Russia's Arctic territorial waters, her place in sailing history is assured."

The sailor was inspired by Sir Francis Chichester, whose own solo circumnavigation in the 1960s captured his imagination.

He said: "The voyage has been long and it has been hard, at times filled with moments of joy and at others of terror.

"Facing down the challenge of rounding the notorious Cape Horn against wind and currents from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean presented the greatest physical peril.

"Together, Barrabas and I now belong to a small elite who have accomplished this feat, fewer in number than astronauts who have walked on the moon.

"To live and not to dream is pointless, but to dream and not to live it is worse."

Mr Flanagan postponed his voyage twice and temporarily returned home - once while waiting for permission from the Russian Government to sail through the Arctic and once when conditions were too treacherous off the Norwegian coast.

He also hitched a ride with a ship in the Russian Arctic because of ice. The sailor is also writing a book called Over The Top which will hit the shelves in October.

He said he would now take time to finish the manuscript before embarking on other challenges.