We're Woody and Irenka and we have spend the last 8 years circumnavigating the world on a sailboat with our three 3 kids. Now back on dry land, we have developed this Podcast Guide to escaping the rat race and living a life of freedom, travel and adventure at sea with your kids.
▷FULL PRESS: https://www.mothershipadrift.com/about
▷BOOK: 'If you want to do it. DO IT!': https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
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Mothership Adrift, Family Travel and Sailing Adventures
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Getting rid of almost everything weowned was one of the most freeing things we ever did. Irenka and I talk through what you really do with all your stuff when you sail off: selling, storing, digitising and letting go, and the china dog she made me sell.
Cockpit Sessions is our sailing book,serialised one section at a time.
Free book sample:https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
Website:https://www.mothershipadrift.com
Getting rid of almost everything weowned was one of the most freeing things we ever did. Irenka and I talk throughwhat you really do with all your stuff when you sail off: selling, storing,digitising and letting go, and the china dog she made me sell.
Cockpit Sessions is our sailing book,serialised one section at a time.
Free book sample:https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
Website:https://www.mothershipadrift.com
Getting rid of almost everything weowned was one of the most freeing things we ever did. Irenka and I talk throughwhat you really do with all your stuff when you sail off: selling, storing,digitising and letting go, and the china dog she made me sell.
Cockpit Sessions is our sailing book,serialised one section at a time.
Free book sample:https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
Website:https://www.mothershipadrift.com
Will a Career Break Actually Ruin You?
Thursday, August 6, 2026 • Duration 20:43
SPOTIFY DESCRIPTION: Walking away from a career feels like career suicide, but the wage is usually the least of it. What you’re really giving up is the identity and status that come with the job. Irenka and I get into what actually happens to your work when you go, whether you can take it with you, and why a break is more survivable than it looks. Plus the ten year gap that knocked Irenka’s confidence, and why we skipped the tennis lessons and gave the kids the Galapagos instead. Cockpit Sessions is me and Irenka working through our book, Mothership Adrift, one section at a time. ▷ BOOK & FREE SAMPLE: https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook▷ WEBSITE: https://www.mothershipadrift.com
But Money…? How Ordinary Families Afford to Travel the World
Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 17:41
Money stops more families going than anything else, so this episode is the honest budget. What a boat really costs, the bargain boat trap, how five of us lived on about £2,000 a month, the £200 wedding, and why Irenka would do the whole thing again in a smaller boat.
Cockpit Sessions serialises our book one section at a time, as a conversation between the two of us.
You can't convince a reluctant partner to sail round the world, and trying is how these plans fall apart before they start. Irenka and I on the difference between fear and simply not wanting to go, why convincing is the wrong goal, and how we found out years in that we'd wanted the same trip for different reasons.
Cockpit Sessions serialises our book one chapter at a time, a two-hander on escaping the rat race by sea.
Book and free sample: https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
Website: https://www.mothershipadrift.com
What Actually Happens to Your Friendships When You Sail Away | Cockpit Sessions Ep.08
Thursday, July 2, 2026 • Duration 16:57
Everyone warns that the hardest part of sailing away is losing your people. Friends, family, the whole sense of belonging. Eight years and a full circumnavigation later, it went the other way. The friends that mattered got closer, and we found a second family at sea on top.
Before you even leave, some people start pulling away, which feels a lot like grief. Irenka's mum kept our spirits up with a steady supply of newspaper clippings about boats sinking. Then you get out there and find a community that forms so fast you can knock on a stranger's hull and be best mates by sundown.
Irenka will talk to anyone. I get peopled out the moment a crowd forms. We never did settle which of us is right.
Cockpit Sessions is the podcast where we work through the book behind our eight-year family circumnavigation, one conversation at a time.
📖 Book (working title) and free sample: https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
🎬 More from us: https://www.mothershipadrift.com
Will Taking Your Kids Out of School Ruin Their Future?
Thursday, June 25, 2026 • Duration 19:24
Taking the kids out of school was the most frightening part of going. It felt like hitting a big red eject button on their future. Eight years and a full circumnavigation later, both boys are back on land and reintegrated, and the honest answer is: they were fine. Better than fine. Just not in the ways a report card measures.
This is the answer to the question more Telegraph readers asked than any other. Their academic side held up. What threw them was the slow grind of the institutional school day on the way back in. Yewan can't understand why school takes a whole day to teach what the boat taught in two hours. Darry was refused GCSE biology, and now gives talks on entomology.
We also disagree, properly, about whether an AI tutor could ever beat a real teacher. We didn't reach a verdict.
Cockpit Sessions is the podcast where we work through the book behind our eight-year family circumnavigation, one conversation at a time.
📖 Book (working title) and free sample: https://www.mothershipadrift.com/mothershipadriftbook
🎬 More from us: https://www.mothershipadrift.com
Did We Ever Doubt It? The Truth About Nearly Stopping
Season 3 · Episode 6
Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 16:11
The problem was never inspiration. It was hesitation. Procrastination. That fatal gap between deciding and actually doing.
This is the episode where we admit how close we came to stopping. The maintenance disasters in Colombia, Malaysia and Australia. The canal crossings where turning back was still an option. The businesses we folded, the friends we didn't expect to miss, and the identity each of us had to give up to leave. We also disagree about whether Starlink and remote work have made the modern version of this too easy.
Next episode we start taking apart the real reasons people don't go, beginning with the kids' education.Cockpit Sessions is the podcast where we work through the book behind our eight-year family circumnavigation, one conversation at a time.
Cockpit Sessions Ep.06 — out now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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We're the Wood family — Woody, Irenka, Rowan, Darroch & Yewan. 8 years circumnavigating on a sailboat with 3 kids • ~40,000 miles • ~40 countries & territories • BOOK RELEASE July 2026 (working title): "Mothership Adrift: A Dad's Guide to Escaping the Rat Race"
Ready, Aim, Fire vs Fire, Aim, Ready. Which Approach Actually Works? | From Cockpit Sessions Ep.05
Season 3 · Episode 5
Thursday, June 11, 2026 • Duration 22:21
We're the Wood family - Woody, Irenka, Rowan, Darroch & Yewan. 8 years circumnavigating on a sailboat with 3 kids
• ~40,000 miles
• ~40 countries & territories
• BOOK RELEASE July 2026: "Mothership Adrift: A Dad's Guide to Escaping the Rat Race and Living a Life of Freedom, Travel and Adventure on the Sea with Your Kids"
How to Stop Playing It Safe and Actually Live Your Life | Cockpit Sessions Ep.04
Season 3 · Episode 4
Thursday, June 4, 2026 • Duration 20:39
We're the Wood family - Woody, Irenka, Rowan, Darroch & Yewan. 8 years circumnavigating on a sailboat with 3 kids
• ~40,000 miles
• ~40 countries & territories
• BOOK RELEASE July 2026: "Mothership Adrift: A Dad's Guide to Escaping the Rat Race and Living a Life of Freedom, Travel and Adventure on the Sea with Your Kids"
Why Some People Escape the Rat Race and Normal Life for Adventure Travel and Others Never Do | Cockpit Sessions Ep.03
Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 16:21
We're the Wood family - Woody, Irenka, Rowan, Darroch & Yewan. 8 years circumnavigating on a sailboat with 3 kids
• ~40,000 miles
• ~40 countries & territories
• BOOK RELEASE July 2026: "Mothership Adrift: A Dad's Guide to Escaping the Rat Race and Living a Life of Freedom, Travel and Adventure on the Sea with Your Kids"
There are 2 ways to start. Woody's spreadsheet method or Irenka one-way ticket method.
Both ended up sailing around the world for eight years.
This episode covers what the first step looked like for 2 completely different people, the families they met out there who started with even less, and why the question is never where to start or how to start. It's just.. start.
Along the way: a Russian family from Siberia who bought a concrete boat and are still sailing. An Israeli family who bought a boat during COVID and learned as they went. An American who binge-watched YouTube for a year and is now completing his circumnavigation. Why interpersonal skills and a good pot of stew will get you further than a Yachtmaster certificate. Why your boat will never be ready. And why secondary port calculations are the nautical equivalent of learning to ride a horse in case your car breaks down.
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💙 SUPPORT OUR CHANNELS:
A big THANK-YOU to our MOTHERSHIP PATREON family who make these videos possible. What is a Patreon? A Patreon is a regular person like you, who helps content creators like us, to make entertaining and useful stuff like this!
If you'd like to help towards the filming, editing and data costs of our Mothership Adrift channels, please:
▷ Click the SUPER THANKS button below the video
▷ Follow the Paypal link: https://paypal.me/Mothershipadrift
▷ Follow the Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/mothershipadrift
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KEYWORDS:
Cockpit Sessions, Mothership Adrift, go chase whales, adversity and resilience, sailing circumnavigation, family sailing, liveaboard sailing, blue water sailing, sailing podcast, escape the rat race, sailing with kids, sperm whale research, whale darting, Indian Ocean sailing, confirmation bias, safe spaces, conformity and independence, sailing lifestyle, adventure lifestyle, how to live differently, sailing couple
Life is a book and it's shorter than you think. This episode is about the people who write a better one.Woody grew up in a mining village in northern England where you got in the trades. Irenka was a latchkey kid in a blended Czech-English family, They both ended up sailing around the world by refusing to follow the preset path. This is how that happens.Why adversity builds resilience rather than damage. What happens to your brain when everything is made safe and why it's the same thing that happens to an astronaut's legs! The moment Irenka encountered the concept of safe spaces and was entirely unconvinced. Why people born into a religion or a culture tend to stay there, and what it takes to break out. And why Woody once jumped into the Indian Ocean with a blood-tipped dart, an angry sperm whale below him and sharks in the water, waiting ten minutes for the boat to come back.
---
💙 SUPPORT OUR CHANNELS:
A big THANK-YOU to our MOTHERSHIP PATREON family who make these videos possible. What is a Patreon? A Patreon is a regular person like you, who helps content creators like us, to make entertaining and useful stuff like this!
If you'd like to help towards the filming, editing and data costs of our Mothership Adrift channels, please:
▷ Click the SUPER THANKS button below the video
▷ Follow the Paypal link: https://paypal.me/Mothershipadrift
▷ Follow the Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/mothershipadrift
---
KEYWORDS:
Cockpit Sessions, Mothership Adrift, go chase whales, adversity and resilience, sailing circumnavigation, family sailing, liveaboard sailing, blue water sailing, sailing podcast, escape the rat race, sailing with kids, sperm whale research, whale darting, Indian Ocean sailing, confirmation bias, safe spaces, conformity and independence, sailing lifestyle, adventure lifestyle, how to live differently, sailing couple
The difference between people who dream about a life of adventure and people who actually go and live one comes down to a single thing.
Mindset.
This episode - two people with completely different approaches to risk, planning and uncertainty talk through what actually separates the ones who go from the ones who don't.
Irenka left home at seventeen with a borrowed one-way ticket to Southeast Asia and no plan. Woody bought a round-the-world itinerary and trained for four months before stepping on a boat. They both ended up sailing around the world.
Also: why in Brighton, you're never more than twenty feet from a juggler, what a five-year-old building a sandcastle could teach Seth Godin, why having an escape route gives you the courage to escape.
Cockpit Sessions is the series in which Woody and Irenka work through the book behind their eight-year sailing circumnavigation, one conversation at a time.
---
💙 SUPPORT OUR CHANNELS:
A big THANK-YOU to our MOTHERSHIP PATREON family who make these videos possible. What is a Patreon? A Patreon is a regular person like you, who helps content creators like us, to make entertaining and useful stuff like this!
If you'd like to help towards the filming, editing and data costs of our Mothership Adrift channels, please:
▷ Click the SUPER THANKS button below the video
▷ Follow the Paypal link: https://paypal.me/Mothershipadrift
▷ Follow the Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/mothershipadrift
---
KEYWORDS:
Cockpit Sessions, Mothership Adrift, sailing mindset, escape the rat race, sailing circumnavigation, family sailing, liveaboard sailing, blue water sailing, sailing podcast, sailing with kids, adventure mindset, how to quit your job and travel, sailing around the world, Seth Godin, risk taking, adventure lifestyle, how to stop making excuses, sailing couple, Brighton, mindset for travel
