Sailing: Caffari plots 'wrong' course to non-stop first

Following on the exploits of Ellen MacArthur, Emma Richards and Sam Davies, Dee Caffari, 30, stole a march on the adventurer Debra Searle when she announced in London that she would be setting off next month in a bid to become the first woman to sail the "wrong" way round the world non-stop.

That takes her against the prevailing winds and currents westabout, round Cape Horn and then through the Pacific and the Indian Oceans and round the Cape of Good Hope before returning to her home town, Portsmouth.

She will be sailing, backed by Aviva, the 72-foot yacht she skippered with an amateur crew in the Global Challenge which finished earlier this year.

Searle, 32, who rowed the Atlantic solo in 2002, hopes to start next October in a difficult to handle 64-foot yacht. It completed the 2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race as NewsCorp and is now backed by Pindar, managed by MacArthur's Offshore Challenges stable.

"My aim is to be the first or fastest woman to circumnavigate the globe east-west," she said. "I only wish Dee was leaving at the same time so we could have a proper race."