A family who spent eight years sailing the world full-time, with their youngest son living more years at sea than on land, say their outgoings have doubled since moving back to the UK.
Alan Wood, 57, travelled the world with his wife, Irenka, 55, and their three children from 2017 to 2025 and are now adapting to life back home. The family set off on their 53-foot 1997 Amel Super Maramu sailboat from Greece in 2017 when the children were just five, eight and 11.
They sailed more than 40,000 nautical miles through more than 40 countries and territories, with their eldest child, Rowan, moving back to the UK for her education five years in. Now the family has returned after the epic adventure, they've been hit with eight years of inflation all at once after spending just £1,500 in monthly outgoings for years.
Doubled outgoings
Since being home, that number has increased to nearly £3,000, due to increased energy bills, cost-of-living and school expenses for the boys. The two youngest children, brothers Darroch, 17, and Yewan, 14, are also now acclimating to full-time education and full access to phones and social media.
Alan, an author based in Brighton, East Sussex, said: "It was an amazing adventure for us as a family, but the adjustment back to real life has taken us aback, especially for our youngest, Yewan, who has spent more years of his life on sea than on land. When you go from bribing your way through the Suez Canal with fuel or fleeing from Sudanese pirates to a regular school day, it takes a moment!"
Amazing adventure
Alan and Irenka set off on the trip from Greece in 2017, having grown "tired of the rat race".
Alan said: "We had been seriously thinking about doing a long-term sailing trip ever since Yewan was born. He was born en caul - a rare occurrence when a baby is born with its head still inside an intact amniotic sac. According to folklore these babies were deemed lucky and sailors believed them to be a talisman. We reached a point where each of the kids were going to be entering a new stage of education and felt if we didn't do it then, we never would."
The couple put their Brighton home on the rental market and set off on S/V Mothership. The rent they received from the home helped cover the mortgage and some living expenses, while a further 25% of their income came from making YouTube and Patreon videos.
Rented out their house
Alan explained: "The rent on our place back in Brighton really helped see us through at first. But we'd also started making videos, just for ourselves, so when I'd go see a boat we might want to buy, I'd post the video online for Irenka to see it as well. Over time we decided to make more videos and it became a decent source of income over the eight years."
During their travels, the family explored all corners of the world, educating the children on the boat and off it.
Alan said: "We homeschooled the kids while on the boat, usually taking up about two hours of the day. But to be honest, their education was as much off the boat than on it. Seeing wild seals in the Galapagos Islands was like a geography and biology lesson in one. Learning how to sail is all physics and they were constantly surrounded by new languages, cultures and foods."
Return to UK
The family decided to return to the UK in May 2025, after escaping from a boat of men "waving AK-47s at them" in the Red Sea. Their two youngest had reached ages where they needed to take exams, like A-levels and GCSEs, while the eldest, Rowan, had already been back in England studying since 2022.
Alan said: "Rowan had headed back to the UK about five years into the journey when she was 16 to complete her studies. The boys were now reaching an age where we'd want them to return back to a more normal life, get their qualifications and grow up. We felt we'd given everything we could to this experience and it gave back to us in equal measure."
Now, back in Brighton for just over a year, the family is settling back into routine, with the boys in six-hour school days as opposed to two-hour sessions and access to more screens than ever before.
Alan said: "To be honest it's been a bit of an assault on the senses, in a good and bad way. It's been an adjustment for the boys to get involved in school, not only academically, as it's a whole new framework, but also socially in some ways. But the kids are very adaptable and have gotten used to things- especially being on phones and tablets. We were always out and about while sailing, but back home there's a lot of life that happens on screens, as we're learning."
Increased costs
Irenka and Alan also took some time adjusting, having eight years worth of inflation hit them all at once. The cost of their weekly shop had doubled and their energy bills soared, especially in direct comparison with using solar panels and a hydro generator on the boat.
Alan is now releasing a memoir/guide about their experiences at sea, called 'If you want to do it, do it!' as a part of restarting their lives at home.
He said: "The effect of inflation hit us big time, especially as we're having trouble selling our boat because the market's pretty flat right now. Our weekly shops almost doubled in cost and the price of heat and electricity was truly stunning. Our old gas boiler was struggling, so we turned to our wood burning stove and found that a dumpy bag of kiln-dried logs was now well over £100. Additionally, water - which we had produced with a watermaker or rain catchers - and electricity - which we'd produced with solar panels and a hydro generator - were expenses we hadn't properly accounted for. I spent most of the last year creating this book detailing our story as a family and Irenka has started her gardening business and worked as a senior sailing instructor."
