Sailing: Working on water with Ellen MacArthur

While we crew dispersed to the corners of Europe for a rest after our long slog to make our giant catamaran, Kingfisher2, ready to leave at any time in our attempt to sail round the world faster than anyone has done before, the work simply went on for the skipper.

Ellen MacArthur jumped on a plane to Hamburg, where she has been installed for more than a week with an expert meteorologist Dr Meeno Schrader, poring over global weather models, running permutations and developing a working relationship with Schrader (who will be our shoreside weather router) and all the while looking for the hint of a weather window that will allow her to make the call to depart from Lorient for the official world-record starting line between The Lizard in Cornwall and Ushant on the north-west tip of France. There is something promising in the air and we will all converge on Lorient today with the distinct possibility of a departure either tomorrow or Tuesday.

In her quest for the Jules Verne Trophy, MacArthur has pulled together a crew of exemplary calibre. She has the total respect of a 13-strong team of world players that other women sailors could only dream about being part of, let alone leading; there are some 27 circumnavigations among us.

The three watch leaders – Neal McDonald, Hervé Jan and Guillermo Altadill – were all aboard Club Med, a sistership to the 110-foot Kingfisher, and won The Race around the world in 2001; two of the French crew were aboard our craft when it was called Orange, and under Bruno Peyron set the current record of 64 days, eight hours and 37 minutes last year.

MacArthur's ability to command the respect of the world's best is partly due to the quality of campaign that she and her Offshore Challenges management team have put together, but is equally a result of her level of drive, determination and resilience and the unsurpassed track record she has amassed in her short time at the top of the sport.

Victory in the Europe 1 NewManSTAR single-handed transatlantic race in 2000 and that famous second place in the Vendée Globe in 2001 put the world on notice of the arrival of a new major player. But it was victory in the single-handed Route du Rhum transatlantic race last November that elevated the 26-year-old to enduring talent status.

You could have entered any of the world's top Olympians, America's Cup or round the world sailors in those three events and it is highly unlikely they would have returned as impressive a scoresheet. And so, when MacArthur leads crew meetings and discusses navigational issues – she will navigate the boat from outside of the watch system which will result in her putting in more waking hours than any of the crew – her views are heeded without question. "If she tells me to head left..." says Ed Danby, a former member of Peter Blake's record-breaking crew and a hugely respected ocean sailor, "I head left."

So tomorrow could see MacArthur back out on the ocean and beginning what is for her a huge new challenge. Those who might think that racing single-handed, non-stop around the world could not be upstaged are not seeing the complex picture in all its dimensions.

Skippering a team of 13 skilled professionals with track records that span not just years but decades in a powerful 110-foot monster which is capable of more than 40 knots, and just as capable of capsizing with a huge potential for loss of life, and where she – the youngest member of the crew – carries the ultimate responsibility, is certainly her biggest test so far.

But she appears to be prepared and is excited about the prospect of getting back to sea. "I'm not going to try to tell these people how to sail and what to do," she said on a recent test sail. "They don't need me to tell them how to get the best out of this boat. I will just try to fit in and be part of the crew. But yes, as the skipper I do feel a responsibility for everyone's safety."

When Kingfisher2 leaves, the record course will take us south towards the Equator and onward, west of the South Atlantic high-pressure system en route for the wastelands of the Southern Ocean. "It should get cold on about day 18," says assistant navigator Kevin McMeel who is the only person other than myself who has yet to experience the Southern Ocean. At that point the three thermal layers go on for around 28 days as we track around Antarctica with Cape Horn as the distant dream. After the left turn at the notorious Cape it is back north to the Equator and on to finish where we started.

Right now the record stands at Peyron's mark, but Olivier de Kersauson is already two weeks into an attempt and about to taste the cold as he hooks into his first east-going low-pressure system and the Southern Ocean sleigh ride. De Kersauson, sailing his trimaran Geronimo, had a fast six-day, 11-hour trip south, breaking the record for the run down to the Equator. He is well ahead of schedule, averaging nearly 20 knots. Peyron's time is beatable given good fortune in the north to south and then south to north phases where these records are arguably won (barring breakdowns or strange weather conditions, the Southern Ocean speed phase is a conveyor-belt ride around Antarctica). If De Kersauson takes the record below 60 days, it will take some beating.