Japanese Man Gives Up Yacht Trip Around World

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Kobe, Nov. 22 (Jiji Press)--A 23-year-old Japanese man has abandoned a voyage to become the youngest Japanese to sail nonstop around the world alone in a yacht, the company he works for said Tuesday.

Hirotsugu Kimura, from Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, returned to a yacht harbor in the western Japan city on Monday.

He had planned to head south in the Pacific Ocean before traveling eastward. But he was caught in a storm on Nov. 12, soon after his departure, and problems emerged with his yacht's self-steering and power generation systems while he was sailing southeast off Tokyo's Hachijojima island.

Kimura is expected to try for the record again as soon as autumn next year.

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[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

Jiji Press