Sailing: England expects... But Ellen MacArthur's new role as skipper could prove her toughest challenge yet

By 4pm yesterday on a windswept Breton quayside, the last of the vital equipment for Kingfisher 2's next voyage had been loaded – half a ton of freeze-dried chicken curry, spaghetti bolognese, shepherd's pie and fish stew.

It is hoped that the 1,200 foil packets will power the 13 crew of the 108ft catamaran to the ultimate prize in ocean-going yachting – the Jules Verne trophy for the fastest non-stop round-the-world voyage.

But if they succeed, the victory will also have been driven by another abundant source of energy, their 5ft 2in and iron-willed female skipper.

Over the coming weeks, Ellen MacArthur will be responsible for soothing, motivating and cajoling an all-male crew through the cruellest seas and weather conditions at breakneck speed in search of sailing glory.

After months of painstaking refitting and sea trials, her £1m boat is, from today, on 24-hours' notice to sail past the U-boat pens of the port of Lorient and start its epic journey.

If the predicted favourable winds arrive, MacArthur and her retinue, which includes some of the most hard-bitten sailors in the business, will venture out into the Atlantic early next week.

Speaking as the food and safety equipment were being heaved on board her vessel, MacArthur said that she was on the brink of realising one of her ultimate goals.

"Sailing around the world has always inspired me; it's always been a passion that has been smouldering away inside me," she said. "For any boat of any size to complete the voyage is an incredible feat. But this is adventure in its purest form – to sail around our planet and to try to do that faster than ever before takes adventure to a different level."

By the middle of March, if all goes to plan, Kingfisher 2 will cross the finishing line at least one second ahead of the record of 64 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes and 24 seconds.

MacArthur will also have to beat any time set by her sole competitor in this year's field, the Frenchman Olivier de Kersauson, whose trimaran Geronimo left port five days ago.

But for the woman who once saved up her school dinner money so she could buy her first boat, an 8ft dinghy, this is a new type of challenge.

MacArthur's rise from the days when she was an unknown raising sponsorship by living in a caravan on the Isle of Wightreached a high point late last year with her record-breaking victory in the Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race.

Displaying extraordinary resolve and a zest for climbing masts in 50ft seas, she has become known for her fortitude as a lone sailor.

This time she finds herself the head of a large crew and one of the largest and most complex racing yachts around.

Even her most avid admirers – no doubt among the 300,000 people who bought her autobiography – admit that her latest undertaking is her toughest yet, both mentally and physically. At the age of 26, MacArthur is not only the smallest but the youngest individual on board theKingfisher 2, which has had previous owners and which as Orange set the Jules Verne record last year.

Even so, she will be responsible for making the fine judgements on speed, weather and route that will decide the success of the attempt, as well as giving orders to her crew of sea-faring veterans from six different countries.

Among those who will help to tighten winches and replace rigging in the freezing seas of the Southern Ocean will be people such as Herve Jan, 45, who has raced 250,000 miles including seven circumnavigations, and Ronan Le Goff, a member of the crew that set last year's Jules Verne record under the captaincy of the Frenchman Bruno Peyron.

Andrew Preece, 43, the boat's cameraman, said: "It is certainly a challenge for her. She has won the respect of some of the best sailors in the world in the crew. But a team always gets on when things are going well and the real test has yet to start. It is once we are out there and if something breaks or we fall behind schedule for the record that we will find out if we all have what it takes."

For MacArthur, success has always been a question of her ability to manage her boat as much as her crew. Despite spending much of the past two years at sea skippering a crew of five, it is clear that the feeling of dependency on her vessel built up over years of solo racing still courses strongly through her veins.

Writing in her autobiography about Kingfisher, the predecessor to her latest boat, MacArthur said: "It's you and her and the ocean and without her I'd be dead. It's a good basis for a relationship."

There is little doubt that all on board Kingfisher 2 will be pushed to their limits. The catamaran will travel at up to 40 knots, 24 hours a day. At least half of the voyage will be spent in freezing Antarctic waters.

The rules of the Jules Verne trophy, which is named after the 19th-century French fantasy author and has had a 70 per cent failure rate since it came into existence in 1990, are as simple as they are daunting.

Competitors can sail the 26,000-nautical mile route through seven seas and 17 different weather systems in whatever vessel they want and leave whenever they want.

After they cross the starting line running from the island of Ushant off Brittany and Cornwall's Lizard Point, they must pass South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, Australia's Cape Leeuwin and Chile's Cape Horn before returning to Ushant.

The occupants of Kingfisher 2 will work in three teams of four on a rota of four-hour shifts – one on deck, another on standby and the other snatching some sleep. As well as their freeze-dried meals, which come in 12 different flavours, each crew member will have a daily regime of up to 30 vitamin and dietary supplements and one chocolate bar.

Surveying it all will be MacArthur, who learnt during her first headline-grabbing voyage – her second place in Vendee Globe solo circumnavigation in 2000 – to survive with as little as 90 minutes of sleep every 24 hours.

MacArthur said: "I just want to get started. All I can say is that we will give this record attempt everything we have got. I am going to sail round the world with a bunch of people as fast as I can. Ultimately, that is the responsibility on my shoulders."