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Zhai Mo launched his beloved sailboat, the AOATEA, at Songliao Pier on Monday morning in Dalian of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, in a bid to become the first Chinese sailor to single-handedly navigate the globe. Zhai, 35, an artist from Tai'an in East China's Shandong Province, plans to set sail on March 18 without power or a communication system, packing only about 150 kilograms of water and food. The lone sailor intends to cruise China's coastline for an initial two-month period before heading out on a one-year-plus voyage around the world. "I've long dreamed of showing that the cultures of the original inhabitants along the Pacific Ocean arose from Chinese culture," said Zhai Mo. As a painter and photographer interested in Western art history, Zhai began to work in France in 1998. While in Europe, he discovered that many European artists were influenced by the cultures of New Zealand's original inhabitants, such as the Maori. Two years later, he decided to relocate there. In February of that year, he bought a sailboat for more than 100,000 New Zealand dollars (US$56,140) and named it "AOATEA", meaning "white clouds" in the Maori language, in memory of the first Maori who migrated to New Zealand. They are said to have sailed until what appeared to be white clouds on the horizon turned into islands. Zhai packed all his belongings in the boat and sailed around the country, before heading on to New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Samoa, Nauru, Tonga and Fiji, covering 21,000 nautical miles in total. He collected many items from the people of the islands of the Southern Pacific including totems and music. "We tracked our roots to China far, far away," Zhai said as he repeated the words of a Maori chief. These words reminded Zhai of the American Indians, whose culture is closely related to Chinese culture. "I just wanted to trace the contribution of Chinese civilization to the folk cultures of the original inhabitants along the Pacific," said Zhai, as he explained his hope to write a book on the history of the local people in the Southern Pacific, North America and South America. As for the hardships he may experience at sea, Zhai said he is well-prepared, noting that during earlier trips, loneliness tortured him most. "I travelled single-handedly for dozens of days on the sea. Sometimes nature deprived me of wind and waves -- the only language I could hear on my journey," Zhai said. On his last trip to Fiji, his boat was trapped motionless without wind for four to five days. "I could only look up at the sky and down at the sea, imaging the great danger beneath the deadly silent waves." Zhai said he has promised himself many times to remain permanently on an island and run a Chinese restaurant with his girlfriend, a Chinese girl studying in New Zealand who worries whenever Zhai is at sea. "But when I set foot on the land, the longing for sailing becomes even stronger," Zhai said.