Two University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) surgeons are swapping their scalpels for seasickness pills as they take to the oceans on a round-the-world voyage.

Consultant liver surgeons Darius Mirza and Professor John Buckels have volunteered as Transplant Ambassadors for the forthcoming Clipper Round-the-World yacht race.

The gruelling 40,000-mile challenge, which set out from Southampton last Sunday (31 July), will see their yacht – called Edinburgh Inspiring Capital – circumnavigate the world's oceans.

The event aims to promote organ donation and transplantation in the UK and in the various countries visited by the race, including Brazil, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, the USA and Canada.

Accompanying the crew during various stages of the voyage will be a 10-strong relay team comprising four transplant patients and six medical staff from across the UK.

Included among the surgeons are Mr Mirza and Prof Buckels, who were both recruited by their former colleague Stephen Wigmore, Professor of Transplantation Surgery at the University of Edinburgh, who is leading the project.

Prof Buckels will be taking on the third leg, which sees him sail the Southern Oceans during October and November this year; Prof Wigmore will embark on the Pacific Ocean leg in March/April 2012; and Mr Mirza will bring the yacht home during the eighth and final leg from New York to the UK via Canada and the Netherlands next June.

Mr Mirza, who joined UHB as a trainee in 1991 and has been a consultant since 1996, said: “I am very apprehensive but also looking forward to it.

“I have no sea legs at all and am completely brand new to all of this, but it was mainly down to supporting Steve and supporting the project.”

UHB has the largest solid organ transplantation programme in Europe, and Mr Mirza added: “This is all about raising the awareness for organ transplantation and also showing what transplant patients can achieve.

”It will be physically and mentally quite demanding and we have all done three to four weeks of training on the yacht itself. We will all be doing one leg each, which takes about a month, but one of the patients will be doing the whole round-the-world trip.

“I will be helping to bring the yacht home – the glory leg!”

Prof Buckels recently retired after 14 years as a consultant but still holds an honorary contract with the Trust.

The "ship’s medics" have all funded their own trips, while money has been raised through sponsorship to pay for the patients to participate.

The voyage can be followed live on the Clipper Round-the-World Race website.