Ewan McGregor is preparing to sail thousands of miles from the west coast of Scotland to Brazil for a major new documentary series.
The Scottish actor will set off from Oban with his childhood friend Eric Strickland for an ambitious transatlantic sailing adventure which will take the pair all the way to Rio de Janeiro.
Their voyage is being filmed for a new series called True Wind, reuniting McGregor with the team behind his hugely successful Long Way travel documentaries.
The 55-year-old revealed his imminent departure while discussing his decision to sell a cherished 1965 Ford Mustang which he bought while filming Moulin Rouge! in Australia more than 25 years ago.
McGregor is unable to attend the car’s auction at the Goodwood Revival sale on 19 September for a fairly unusual reason.
He told The Times he will instead be “sailing from Oban in Scotland to Rio de Janeiro for a documentary”.
The new adventure will see McGregor swapping the motorcycles which have taken him around the world for a sailing boat. True Wind follows McGregor and Strickland as they finally fulfil a childhood ambition to cross the Atlantic together.
The pair have been friends since primary school and the project is particularly significant because, unlike McGregor’s previous expeditions, he is a novice sailor.
Strickland has some sailing experience but has never undertaken an unsupported ocean crossing on this scale. Preparations have been under way for months.
In May, McGregor and Strickland joined the Emirates Great Britain SailGP team in New York for what the actor described as “one hell of a sailing lesson”.
They boarded the team’s high-speed F50 racing catamaran during the New York Sail Grand Prix as part of their training for the transatlantic expedition.
McGregor described the experience as an “extraordinary adrenaline rush”.
The pair have also been preparing closer to home, with training in Scotland forming part of their preparations for the voyage.
The adventure is being directed by David Alexanian and produced by Elixir Films – the team behind McGregor’s previous Long Way television series.
McGregor and Charley Boorman first became unlikely travel television stars with Long Way Round in 2004, when they rode motorcycles from London to New York via Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and Alaska.
They followed it with Long Way Down, travelling from John o’ Groats to Cape Town, and reunited years later for Long Way Up, riding electric motorcycles from Argentina to Los Angeles.
Their most recent adventure, Long Way Home, saw McGregor and Boorman take vintage motorcycles on a journey through Europe before returning to Scotland.
There will be a book documenting the extraordinary journey. True Wind: Two Friends, One Boat and an Impossible Crossing, written by McGregor and Strickland, is due to be published by Pan Macmillan in September 2027.
The publisher describes it as the story of a 6,000-mile voyage of “friendship, courage and survival”.
It will chart the pair’s story from their childhood friendship through the preparation for the expedition, including restoring a nearly 40-year-old Oyster sailing boat and training at Loch Tay.
The voyage itself is expected to take them from Scotland through the Irish Sea and on towards the west coast of Africa before the Atlantic crossing to Brazil.