THE Southampton sailor held captive by Iran has returned home and has spoken of his ordeal.

Oli Smith - the skipper on racing yacht Kingdom of Bahrain, which was seized by authorities in the Persian Gulf after straying out of international waters - landed back in Britain today (FRI), after being released on Wednesday.

But despite spending days locked up by the notorious Republican Guard, he revealed the team can't wait to get back to the Middle East to start racing again.

"We're hoping to get back out to the Gulf, get the boat fixed up and carry on with everything we were trying to do," said Mr Smith, 31, who lives in Shirley.

The four sailors, who were held while Iranian authorities investigated whether they were guilty of "evil intentions", were captured as they attempted to sail from Bahrain to Dubai to compete in the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race.

Mr Smith said he was the only one of the group who was not blindfolded after they were stopped because he had to steer the boat.

But while they spoke of their "absolute joy" at being free, Mr Smith insisted they had been well treated by the Iranian authorities.

"Obviously it was a very tense situation to start with, certainly for the first few days," he said, shortly after touching down at Heathrow Airport.

"As they got to know us it did relax a little.

"The guys on the ground treated us very well.

"It's not something you practice for.

"I guess we're quite lucky because we do long transatlantic passages, stuck in a small space together in stressful situations with the same group of guys for some time, and that helped us all get through it."

Mr Smith said the team had not realised their mistake at sea as they tried to avoid oil rigs, because it was not clear from their charts that the yacht had sailed into Iranian waters.

"We had no intention of upsetting anyone. We were just trying to get here (Dubai) to start a yacht race," he said.

Once on the Iranian mainland, the crew said they were not allowed to leave the room where they were being held without being accompanied by a guard, but were taken to make checks on their yacht.

They were given the use of a chess board and darts and were sometimes allowed outside during the evenings.

The guards also left the door open as the group ate meals to let fresh air into their room, they said.

And then, almost as abruptly as their ordeal started, it was over.

"That morning we were hopeful something would happen.

"They were late turning up for breakfast and they just came in and said 'you're free to go'.

"We weren't really sure what was going on."

Chairman of Sail Bahrain, Andrew Pindar said there was a "high degree of embarrassment" among the sailors.

"The first thing they said was 'Sorry for giving people grey hairs'," he said.

"They're embarrassed that they've created a problem for other people.

"Something went wrong, but it doesn't stop you going back. These guys want to sail the ocean, they're all professional sailors with ambitions to take part in other ocean races."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband welcomed the end to the men's "ordeal", saying the move to free them by the Iranian authorities was proof that "diplomacy can work".