WHEN yachtsman Adrian Flanagan was swept overboard just days into his round-the-world voyage, he thought he might never make it home.

But after 11 months battling fierce storms, monstrous waves and loneliness, Mr Flanagan, from Ludgershall, has finally made it back.

And there was not a dry eye in the house when he saw his two sons running towards him at the airport on Thursday.

Mr Flanagan, 45, who has dreamt of sailing around the world since he was a boy, was forced to halt his voyage in Alaska last month due to engine problems and Russian red tape.

But he says he is determined to complete the voyage next year, which would see him become the first person to sail solo around the world via the polar regions - and has already booked tickets to return to Alaska on June 26.

Although he has given up the non-stop part of his goal, Mr Flanagan has already won himself a place in the history books as making the first recorded single-handed, non-stop and unassisted passage between the UK and Hawaii.

Sitting at the kitchen table with his two sons, Gabriel, four, and Benji, seven, Mr Flanagan said: "It feels very strange, like I have just been away for the weekend, it's slightly disorientating."

Although the trip has taken its toll physically - he dislocated both his wrists and suffered a near dislocation of his shoulder - Mr Flanagan said the hardest part was being separated from his sons.

But he said he was very careful not to make himself emotionally vulnerable.

He said: "There were no pictures of the children on the boat. I did not run the risk of making myself sentimental - that would have been a compromise and unsafe. It was really important to maintain an even emotional keel."

And he said one of the biggest surprises about the trip, which saw him go for more than six months without any human company, was how he coped mentally.

He said: "Emotionally I was pretty well-balanced. I thought I would be much more volatile. I felt very scared a lot of the time but the way I dealt with it, I surprised myself."

Mr Flanagan used the trip to help raise money for the Oxford Children's Hospital campaign and Save the Children.

And although he said he is disappointed with the amount raised so far - about £2,000 - he hopes to raise much more over the coming months with a fresh fundraising push.

He also plans to raise more sponsorship, sort out the next leg of his trip, and write a book about conquering Cape Horn.

Mr Flanagan said the trip, which saw him sailing alongside whales, dolphins and a flock of albatross, had helped him find an inner calm.

He said: "I have learnt that you can't force any situation and you can apply that to anything in life. You have to adapt to the situation which is more powerful than you. That's quite a big lesson.

"I always felt this great dissatisfaction before, like there was some great hole I wanted to fill and I suspect that probably won't be there any more."