Yachtswoman tries for second record - graduate jobs

A record-breaking Leeds Metropolitan University graduate will be spending Christmas Day bobbing alone in the Southern Ocean.

But Dee Caffari is used to spending Christmas at sea, with this year's Vendee Globe round the world yacht race being her third solitary Yuletide in five years.

Miss Caffari has freeze-dried Christmas dinner to look forward to on board her racing yacht Aviva this Christmas as she attempts to achieve a double world first by becoming the only woman in history to sail solo and non-stop both ways around the world.

In 2005 she spent a record-breaking festive season at sea, sailing solo, non-stop around the world the wrong way. The graduate in Human Movement Studies, who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Leeds Met during graduation in summer 2006, is now heading in the opposite direction.

Though there are no creature comforts on board the Open 60 yacht, her shore crew did manage to hide some secret surprises including a present from her boyfriend and a boil in the bag sticky toffee pudding before she left.

The former secondary school PE teacher said: "In the last five years, I have spent three Christmas Days at sea so it's starting to become normal. That said it's really just another day at the office for me, we're still racing and the faster I go the sooner I'll be back home."