Alex Thomson is considering his future in ocean racing after his harrowing experience in the Southern Ocean. It seems inconceivable that such a determined sailor will not return to race in the most inhospitable seas on the planet, but Thomson, 32, was a changed man yesterday as he arrived back in Britain with the man who rescued him, Mike Golding.

“The whole way [in the Velux 5 Oceans race] I was trying not to be Alex Thomson, trying not to push too hard, trying to keep the boat subdued,” Thomson said. “And in this situation Alex Thomson would have gone, even after all that, ‘Right, I am coming back down here next year’, and I’m not going to do that.

“I’m going to have a couple of weeks here, then go on holiday and make a decision in the new year as to exactly what I am going to do.”

The cocksure skipper who left Bilbao on November 22 at the start of the 5 Oceans was contemplative and humbled. Thomson may emerge stronger and braver but he said that he will make decisions after Christmas about his original intention to follow the 5 Oceans race by competing in the 2007-08 two-handed Barcelona World Race and the 2008-09 Vendée Globe.

Thomson said that at the moment his plans would remain unaltered but he added: “I need time to think about the whole thing and make sure I make the decision for the right reason. I’ve signed up for Barcelona and for the Vendée Globe, but this has been a pretty traumatic experience and I don’t want to say, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait to get back to the Southern Ocean’, because at this very moment I don’t really want to go back there. It is time to reflect.”

Having to abandon the stricken Hugo Boss will weigh heavily on Thomson’s mind, but, like Golding, he is one of the best-funded sailors in the business and he does have a new boat under construction in Lymington that is scheduled to be delivered in April.

Thomson has been shaken by his second narrow escape from the Southern Ocean. Ending up limping back into Cape Town and drinking in the same bar, two years after his withdrawal from the 2004-05 Vendée Globe when a mast broke, can do strange things to a superstitious sailor.

Having recounted their experiences time and again yesterday, Golding — who also abandoned the 5 Oceans race after turning back in Ecover to rescue Thomson — looked just as exhausted. He has been plagued by a recurring nightmare in which he fails to save Thomson. “I’ve had dreams, bad dreams, of going round to get Alex and Alex going out of sight,” Golding said.

The two sometimes bitter rivals became friends in their week at sea together. “People have reminded me that when Pete [Goss] picked [Raphaël] Dinelli up [in a rescue in the 1996-97 Vendée Globe], he said he felt Dinelli had invaded his space,” Golding said. “But I never felt that because we’d only had three hours and then we were working together, so I have to say I never felt that sense of intrusion — although I have to say that everything went missing, all the torches weren’t where they were supposed to be.”

Will they remain friends? “Definitely,” Thomson said. “I thought Mike was a different type of person and he probably thought I was a different type of person. Actually we had a lot of laughs aboard Ecover.” Whether Thomson rushes back to the Southern Ocean, though, remains to be seen.

Plain sailing

Born in Bangor, Wales, he was the youngest skipper to win a round-the-world race, taking the Clipper event aged 25 in 1998-99