For ten years Chris Tipper's pedal-boat has weathered typhoons, hurricanes and civil war.

Today, 'Moksha' remains battered but unbeaten and is set to continue on the world's most arduous round-the-globe trek.

Chris, a 35-year-old furniture-maker from Brighton, said: "She has a few battle scars but she was built to last."

Chris, whose firm Wild Wood is based near Newhaven beach, was approached by his pals Jason Lewis and Steve Smith in May 1992 when they came up with the idea of circumnavigating the globe using only muscle-power.

In the past decade they had paddled, cycled and in-line skated their way from the Meridian Line in London across the Atlantic, over the US, through the Pacific and overland to Darwin in northern Australia.

The trip is currently on hold as the Expedition 360 team raises money for the final ocean-borne leg up to West Timor.

That is likely to be Moksha's last contribution, as the team stays on terra firma to trek across Asia and Europe back home.

In May 2000, Chris spent 111 days in the cigar-shaped two-man craft, alongside Jason, pedalling from Tarawa in the central Pacific, 1,100 miles to the Solomon Islands, east of New Guinea.

He said: "The two most difficult sections have been completed. I definitely want to spend some more time on board but I can't just keep dropping everything to go away for three months at a time."

The expedition had been intended to last four years but there was a major setback when Jason was hit by a car as he skated through Colorado. It took him 18 months to recover, before he finally ducked out of the challenge.

Steve, with an ever-changing band of team members, has since spent time raising money by attracting sponsorship and running school visits to educate children about the bizarre journey.

Chris, who lives in Camelford Street, said Moksha suffered more damage on land than at sea, although the trip was almost over when she was caught in a Pacific storm 140 miles off Monterey.

And there was a hairy moment when he arrived at the Solomon Islands. He said: "It was night when we pulled in so we waited off-shore to allow us to get some good video footage of the coral reef as we went in.

"What we didn't know was the island we were supposed to be landing on was at war with another one we had just passed.

"At the dead of night, we were visited by two boats carrying about 20 soldiers with guns. They stared at us for a while, as we sat there in our underpants making tea, before deciding we didn't look much like the enemy."

A three-hour documentary is being shown on Sky's Discovery Channel at 8pm on Sunday to mark the tenth anniversary of the expedition.