But a mixture of single mindedness, ambition and sheer hard work has propelled the woman from Whatstandwell in Derbyshire to the starting line in the 23,896 mile Vendee Globe.

In the first Vendee Globe race in 1989 Nigel Burgess lost his life and nine years later British sailor Tony Bullimore was famously rescued by the Australian Navy after sheltering for days in an air pocket of his upturned boat in the treacherous seas of the Southern Ocean.

Ellen was supposed to be already underway on 5 November but gale force winds and rough seas has seen the start postponed for four days.

When the starting gun finally goes off at Les Sables d'Olonne in France Ellen will embark on the perilous journey non-stop around three capes, crossing the Atlantic and Southern oceans in the process in her 60ft boat, Kingfisher.

She will have to endure storms, hidden icebergs and a diet of freeze-dried meals for 100 days, but she can't wait to get going.

She has been injured before in rough seas, falling down a hatch in 1997, hitting her head and breaking a finger, but she kept going to win.

"I don't see my age as being something special," she said.

"People say to me 'What's it like to be sailing as a girl?' or 'What's it like to be young?'

"But I don't know because you are yourself and I don't know what it's like to be older and a bloke."

Ellen has had good preparation for this race. She is not the product of a yachting club but that has not stopped her winning the Mini Transat single handed cross-Atlantic race in 1997 and being named the BT British Yachtsman of the Year in 1998.

Her love of yachting started when she was an eight-year-old on family holidays.

In 1994 she bought a 21ft cruiser and sailed single handed around Britain.

Determined

Her mother, Avril, saw Ellen's potential from an early age.

""She's always been a very determined person. She always knew exactly what she wanted and always stuck to it, never giving up despite everthing.

"She's a very stubborn girl."

Ellen is one of the favourites to win the Vendee Globe and has an enthusiastic following in France.

If she cruises back to Les Sables d'Olonne in 100 or so days in first place she will have a following around the world.

"It was just six years ago when I bought my first real boat to sail single handed around Britain," she said just before the start of the Vendee Globe.

"She was a 21ft cruiser and to think that in six years I've gone forward from her to this - it's just mindblowing."