Edwards prepares to take on the world: Sailing

A triple challenge in a giant twin-hulled catamaran saw the return of Tracy Edwards to high-profile sailing yesterday. Backed by a pounds 4.25m sponsorship package from Royal & Sun Alliance, the former skipper of the Whitbread yacht Maiden will again use an all-woman crew, first to make an attempt in late May on a west-east trans-Atlantic record and then, at the end of July, on the Round Britain and Ireland record.

But all that is merely a pipe-opener for the main event, a tilt early next January at the Jules Vernes Trophy for the fastest, non-stop circumnavigation of the world, the route going down and up the Atlantic and round the Antarctic.

The boat she has chosen already holds that record. Sir Peter Blake and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston set a time of 74 days 22hr 17min 22sec in 1994 in the 92ft Enza. Now, after a refitting programme under the direction of one of the members of that Enza crew, Ed Danby, Edwards hopes to clip two days off the record.

n Garrards, the designers and makers in 1851 of the 100 Guinea Trophy, which became the America's Cup, believe it can be restored in six weeks following its battering with a brick hammer by a protester in Auckland.