Ellen MacArthur has provided her sponsor Kingfisher with the kind of exposure of which public relations companies can only dream.

Industry insiders estimate that the outlay compares in terms of impact to the �20m annual fee that football's Premier League are believed to be asking from sponsors.

But perhaps the success is no more than the retail group deserved.

She was just 20 at the time and inexperienced, but just 10 minutes speaking to her convinced the powers-that-be at retail group Kingfigher - whose portfolio includes British high street brands Woolworth and B&Q - that she was worth a �2m investment.

The rest, as they say, is history.

French profile

"Ellen MacArthur's success has surpassed all expectations," said Jonathan Miller, head of PR at Kingfisher.

"She's given fantastic brand awareness for our company which we could only have dreamt of at the outset.

"We had just bought a number of retail outlets in France and needed to project our image.

"Yachting and sailing over there is massive, and given the stature of the Vendee Globe round-the-world race, we saw this as a pretty good vehicle to increase our profile in France.

Harrison's own personal fortune has helped kick-start the campaign, but he hopes the success of MacArthur and Kingfisher will help attract sponsors on board.

"The last challenge Britain made, in 1987, was woefully under-funded, so the battle for us now is to get sponsors interested," he said.

"We must look at Ellen's success and the benefits it's had for Kingfisher."