Next up for Dee

Since completing her solo round the world record life has changed for Dee Caffari. We find out what she is up to now

33 year old English woman Dee Caffari entered sailing's history books back in May this year when she succeeded in becoming the first female to sail singlehanded non-stop around the world westabout as part of her Aviva Challenge. While today she may not be as famous as Ellen MacArthur, Dee certainly managed, deservedly, to grab all the headlines in the national press at the time in an Ellen-esque sort of way and this is paving the way for her future plans.

It seems slightly surreal that we are speaking to Dee following the efforts of a central London PR company representing the wonder lubricant WD40, but Dee is now part of the 'WD40 dream team' (one imagines a team of superheroes clad in blue overalls brandishing aerosols).

"I don’t get the overalls, but I do get the cans of spray, which is fabulous," says Dee when we put this to her. "They have got people who are experts in different arenas - so there is a gardener, a property developer, and then myself using a sailing and adventure racing environment and we are there to enlighten people to the uses of WD40. Every nation has a can in their household and probably forget they have a can and probably don’t realise that they can be used for more than the squeaky door hinge. I thought I was pretty good with my uses of WD40, but it is really good for cleaning sticky substances, so cleaning and polishing but also getting rid of tar or chewing gum and then there are more obvious ones such as a water deterrent, lifting rust and avoiding corrosion and keeping stuff moving."

WD40 plug over, we can get down to the serious business of what Dee has been up to since May and her plans from here. While sailing is still very much her metier, she has recently returned from competing in the gruelling Pure Tasmania Challenge, an event organised by the charity bearing the name of Australian Formula 1 race car driver Mark Webber. In the name of raising money and increasing awareness for cancer suffers, this event involved 12 teams of four covering a 600km course around Tasmania in an arduous mix of running, cycling and kayaking - for roughly 14 hours each day.

"Sailing around the world did seem very attractive at the time," she remembers. "Day one was a baptism. We started from Launceston in the north and did an urban challenge around town. Some of the checkpoints were in hospitals so we would interact with cancer sufferers and it was great for raising awareness. Then in the afternoon we started this bike ride that was 56 km and it had a 1200m ascent in it! After eight hours in the saddle it was dark by the time I arrived in camp and I never wanted to see my bike again. And that was day one."

Aside from being taxing physically, the event also showed off Tasmania - from a 6 km timed cycle along Strahan Beach alongside the Southern Ocean surf, to the more temperate climes of Hobart to having ice forming on their tents as they camped at the top of Cradle Mountain one night.

In Dee's all-female team were Olympic bronze medallist rower Helen Reeves, Rachel Cadman, who competed in an Ironman uber-triathlon event in the Libyan desert this year and Victoria Wentworth, a former army major and a friend of Caffari's. "I loved it. It has opened up a whole new world to me. It was really refreshing being in a change of environment because I had been out on the ocean two years back to back. So it was nice to do something different. And it has raised my personal fitness level, so I am hoping to go back out on the water and be much more competitive which is a fabulous way to be at a higher fitness to start that kind of aspiration. It is a great way to maintain fitness that is fun, not just slogging in a gym all the time."

So what will she do next sailing-wise? At present Dee is being non-specific but an announcement is expected to be made in the New Year and one imagines it will be a Vendee Globe campaign, if not for 2008, then for 2012. She says she is definitely more interested in doing races than records now and seems to be taking a realistic stance in what she has to do to get there (remember Dee used to work for Mike Golding Yacht Racing and has already lived and breathed Open 60s).

"I am quite aware that I aspire to do these great things, but I realise there is a steep learning curve on the way and I want to take it step by step and sail with the right people and get the right experience," she says wisely. "I want to take my sailing to a more competitive level, so I need to look at all elements a lot more now, not just surviving crashing into waves. I think to step up a gear I need to learn how to push hard and push at a speed that I can maintain for long periods of time just to be competitive. Ultimately I’d love to do the Vendee, but getting to the start line is the most difficult part."

While her round the world voyage over last winter will certainly have provided her with some of the many skills required for this gruelling discipline within our sport, Dee understands there remain substantial holes among the skill set she will need to race rather than merely sail in the Vendee. For this reason she is likely to be racing two handed on board a Mini in 2007 with a friend of hers Ollie Bond. "I want to learn how to go downwind and be on that edge of control and just to get used to being at speed and being comfortable with it," says Dee. "I am great at angle crashing into waves, but it is that downwind surfing feeling that is quite new to me..."

So what are her chances of being on the Les Sables d'Olonne start line in 2008? "It is quite soon and the financial side is more difficult than jumping on the boat and getting the experience. If I can get it all together then that would be great, but there are stages to aim for and it is important that the training and experience level matches any recruitment of money. It is time out on the water that is invaluable."

Thanks to the adventure element and due to it being one woman alone on a boat, not to mention her record being that rarity these day - a world first! - Dee managed to get exceptional coverage from her round the world voyage, as we have mentioned. In France, New Zealand and from time to time, the UK, it is possible to get the general public interested in sailing (whereas no one has yet succeeded in doing this for example in the USA). While Dee was a household name in the UK for a week or so back in May, rather like radioactive waste fame seems to have a half life.

So does she get noticed on the street still? "That has calmed down a bit. Maybe in Southampton [she lives on the outskirts of Southampton] but just because I have been helped out by the Spirit Health Clubs down there. I am more a Z list celebrity rather than an A list. It is a case of almost but not quite."

More interesting for Dee is how has her life changed since her round the world voyage. "I wasn’t ready for the impact it was going to have, but it has been a pleasant experience. It hasn’t been a trauma. I haven’t found it invasive, I have found it exciting. Massive opportunities have arisen from completing my voyage and I have experienced stuff that perhaps I wouldn’t have known even existed. I have flown with the RAF with the Red Arrow jets, I have been to the British Grand Prix, I have been sailing with James Cracknell and just moving in such a different circle and experiencing things. Even the invite the week I got back to sail with Moose [Mike Sanderson] on ABN AMRO, or on the VX40 around the island - they were just great opportunities and they were fabulous. I am fascinated by people and seeing these new environments and it is nice to have people genuinely interested in my story as well."

Our view is that in the household name stakes she is almost up to the point Ellen was at when she finished the Vendee Globe back in 2001. All she needs now is another event to capitalise on this. The Mark Webber challenge was one way of keeping the pot boiling, Dee is aware. "It was a way to maintain my profile to enable me to carry on looking for sponsorship and organise future projects. So it is one of those games you play of doing something that is exciting and getting the coverage you need to enable you to get the next sponsorship for the next project." For those interested the Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge will be featured in the UK on Channel 4 at 0700 this Sunday, 10 December.

A welcome benefit of Dee's new found profile is that corporate doors having been swinging open easier. "We were very fortunate that off the back of Aviva Challenge it allows you to go in and talk to the right people. Before it was difficult to find the right person. Now at least you get to sit in front and present your case."

It is possible she may do something in the future again with Aviva. "I have been taken on as an ambassador for Aviva. I am doing a lot of talks within their global offices. So we are looking at what we could do together," she acknowledges. "They have done a number of them through the Global Challenge and then with the Aviva Challenge. It depends on whether it is good for their marketing at the time."

We will be keeping our fingers crossed that Dee can find appropriate funding for her Vendee campaign for she has all the right qualities and there are few people, other than perhaps Phil Sharp, who deserve it more.