MINI TRANSAT hero Phil Sharp is dreaming of following in Ellen MacArthur’s wake.

Sharp (24), who sailed his 21 ft boat Le Gallais to fourth out of 72 in last year’s 4,300-mile single-handed Transat, wants to compete in the Vendée Globe yacht race – the peak of ocean racing in which MacArthur first made her name when she came second in 2001.

He is aiming for the Vendée in 2008.

But first he hopes to race a 40-ft yacht in this year’s Route de Rhum from St Malo to the Caribbean which MacArthur won in a new record time in 2002.

But for both races Sharp needs a sponsor.

And that involves serious money.

‘I’m looking at about three times the cost of the Transat – I’ll need about £200,000 for the Rhum,’ he said this morning.

‘The boats are a lot bigger and a lot more expensive.

At the moment the Vendée is just a dream – it costs about £3 million for a Vendée campaign! ‘But I’ve decided that now I’ve started sailing and racing I’ve got to keep going – it’s a bit like a drug, I suppose but if I don’t pursue it now I think I’ll regret it for the rest of my life ‘Short term I’d like to do the Rhum and I’m fishing around and exploring the possibilities.

Ideally I’d find someone who’d help me with the Rhum and carry it forward to the Vendée.

‘The Rhum’s quite notorious because it’s held in November.

In the last one in 2002 only three out of 18 trimarans in the multihull class finished.

One of the most difficult parts is through the Bay of Biscay in the winter gales – last year they were recording up to 100 knots of wind.

‘But I want to sail a monohull because they’re more robust.

I’ve never sailed a 40-footer single-handed but I don’t think it can be any tougher than the Mini Transat.’ In fact Sharp surpassed MacArthur in the Transat.

She finished in overall 17th when she competed in 1997 while Sharp defied the odds to come in fourth.

The race takes the fleet from La Rochelle on the west coast of France to Salvador in Brazil with a stopover in the Canary Islands.

Despite shredding a spinnaker Sharp finished fourth in the first leg to Lanzarote and then got a good start in the second before he gambled on a course to the west of the islands and found himself back in 58th position.

But he gradually made his way through the field to snatch sixth place in the second leg and fourth overall, just two hours behind the third boat.