In four days’ time, Ellen MacArthur and Australian Greg Homann will set sail from Stockholm on the BT F18 catamaran on the Archipelago Raid – one of Europe’s toughest sailing challenges.

This is Ellen’s first race this season for the BT Team Ellen sailing team. The Raid, an orienteering sailing race, is known for pushing the teams of two to the limit, both mentally and physically, as they navigate their Formula 18 catamarans round the 100,000 islands that make up the Swedish, Aland and Finnish archipelagos. This is a unique six-day endurance event and a really tough challenge for every single sailor taking part, however impressive their sailing CVs. This will be the second time that Ellen has taken part; in 2003 she was forced to withdraw early with a leg injury.

This time 22 teams will be competing in this gruelling orienteering raid over 500 miles. Racing for up to eighteen hours per day, the teams will get little sleep. The challenge for Ellen will be that she has not sailed this type of catamaran very often so she will be joined by Greg Homann, an experienced catamaran sailor and they will have to work hard to ensure that they manage the boat and themselves as efficiently as possible. The BT F18 is a powerful machine, capable of exciting speeds, but difficult to keep on the boil when fully alert, let alone when the tiredness creeps in.

Find out more about the Archipelago Raid