SAILING/Round Ireland Monohull Trophy: Johnny Watterson talks to Frenchman Jean Paul Chomett, who is hoping to break the round Ireland record

Despite romantic notions of perilous seas and wind-blown lifestyles, modern sailors - even the most god-gifted - are often computer-brained technocrats. Pragmatists, they seldom see the beauty of a wave but understand its physics and how it can knock their boat into the prize ring or out of the competition.

Ellen MacArthur, the waifish heavyweight of global assaults, speaks breathlessly about trimming and wind angles, polar seas and sleep deprivation. Like others who take on grand challenges, her views are rarely confused or complex. The palm of her hand is enough of an instrument to explain hulls and keel angles. The ability to talk it simple along with an unerring instinct and understanding of the multiplicity of factors that propel a boat through water is lightly worn genius.

In the mould of MacArthur and the string of sailors since Howard Sinclair set the first Round Ireland record of a little over 11 days in 1896, another mariner arrives in Dún Laoghaire tomorrow to pitt wits, muscle and machine against the wind and seas around this island. A record set is also a record to be broken.

Having shattered the longer round Ireland and Britain mark last year, Jean Paul Chomett blows in with his French brand of derring do and his hybrid boat City Jet Solune in the hope of sailing around the island faster than anyone before him. If he does, The Cork Dry Gin Round Ireland Monohull Trophy is his to re-house in the French capital.

What may be a little confusing in these time-busting efforts is another record on the books and another trophy to be won, The Cork Dry Gin Perpetual Trophy, for the fastest circumnavigation of Ireland under sail by either a multihull or monohull. Steve Fossett and David Scully hold this mark as co-skippers of Lakota, a 60-foot trimaran. Lakota broke the previous record by almost one full day, completing the course in just 44 hours, 42 minutes. The boat averaged almost 16 knots.

But Chomett is chasing the time of The Irish Independent Challenger, an 83-foot Whitbread maxi that rounded the island in 75 hours and 27 minutes under wilder December conditions in 2002.

The Frenchman is drawn to challenges. A one-time committed mountaineer, he discovered sailing only in the 1990s. "I used to be a mountain climber until I discovered sailing seven or eight years ago. Now I have completely given up Alpinism," he says. "Sailing is a very complex and technical sport and that's what I like. After that it is the dynamics of crew, elements and machine. I find that it is a very full experience.

"Other sports draw on your own reserves, but I am like crew, race, record, and boat. I think we will be eight (crew) for this attempt. We can sail with seven, but as we are hoping for some dynamic weather around the Irish coast we will add one person. We hope to get some good blasts to nail this record."

Last time Solune made the attempt during the Round Ireland Race, it perished on adverse wind conditions. The wind blasted for only two days and the angle of the gusts were not best suited to generating maximum performance. Almost 70 per cent of Solune's racing time was spent sailing upwind. Not good for speed.

"We only had the west coast running last time," says Chomett. "Here we will try to find a fairly circular wind, you know with a depression in the middle of Ireland. We'll arrive in Dún Laoghaire on Sunday. If the window is right, we'll go straight away. . . we'll try the pubs after we come back."

If Solune were a dog, the Irish Kennel Club would not allow her cross the front door for the annual St Patrick's Day show. She is the result of a sort of technical mating of two ocean going boats, a Volvo 60 and an Open 60. Viable certainly as they are the same species of boats, but different breeds.

Still, his design team's genetic manipulation of the blueprints has earned Solune a number of trophies, not least the record for rounding both Britain and Ireland, which it did last spring.

It took a little over seven days, but shattered the original record by three full days. On the back of that record and his success in the race from Falmouth to Cascais, Solune also won the Royal Ocean Racing Clubs (RORC) "Yacht Of The Year"in 2004.

That's not bad for a mongrel boat.

"When we developed the boat, it was two thirds Open 60 and one third Volvo 60. Deck lay out and front, she's more like a Volvo 60. Her rig is closer to an Open 60," says Chomett, hotly warming to the design concepts.

"The best way to look at her is that she's a Volvo 70 but 10 feet shorter. Volvo 70s are so close to her it is unbelievable. We wish we'd made her 10 feet longer, but we had no idea. It is quite staggering but it shows that we had our formula right."

Getting the formula right on the water is also part of the equation after the wind, tides and boat hold up to the aggressive racing. Unsuited to the upwind conditions in the Round Ireland Race, the 60-footer also blew out two of the three main spinnakers within an hour of reaching winds off the Fastnet Rock. That cannot happen again.

"Yes, we need to keep the boat intact, not break it," he says. "Last year we lost two spinnakers in two hours because we were too aggressive. We'll have to lift the foot a bit to keep enough sails to the end. We've two new spinnakers.

"I definitely don't want to blow them out. I think we will be careful. The workhorse of our sail wardrobe is the gennaker. It is less prone to problems putting out."

The starting and finishing point for the attempt lies off the Kish Lighthouse in Dublin Bay. The boat can take either route, down past Wicklow or up towards Belfast. Only a consideration of the tides and wind will decide which direction promises the quicker ride.

One thing certain is the departure and direction will be very finely decided. The boat's navigator, Chris Tibbs, can, according to Chomette, give them a start time so precise they will have just half an hour of a window to leave the harbour.

"Chris is the only Brit on the boat," says Chomett cheerfully. "So we enjoy that. He is one of the best navigators in the world. He's done two Whitbreads and a BT Global Challenge. He has experience. He has authority. Nobody on the boat will second-guess what Chris says. You try to do a lot of down wind sailing when you are attempting a record. We will hope for that."

Sinclair's 11-day run in 1896 lasted as a record for 39 years before Humphrey Barton's 30ft Dauntless knocked about three days off the time. In the 1980s, Denis Doyle's Moonduster annexed the record, firstly in 1982 when he reduced it to four days, three hours and 45 minutes, and again two years later when it fell to three days 16 hours and 15 minutes.

In June of 1998, Colm Barrington's Jeep Cherokee, a Whitbread 60-footer shattered the then monohull record by over eight hours until Irish Independent Challenger revised it two years ago.

It is no cruise. The watches will be staggered, but when any complex manoeuvre is required everyone is on deck. The boat's canting keel should also help the effort. Instead of crew rail-meat sitting on the upside of the boat to try and push it down into the water, the heavy keel can be repositioned.

"Under the best conditions we could beat it (record) by a good margin," says Chomette. "The boat that holds the record was much longer than us, but also much heavier, more than a few tons. Also they broke the record in wintertime, in December, so they had dynamic conditions. But yes, I think it is realisable."