Wheelchair sailor prepares for record

Trevor Jones is planning to take his yacht round the world

A quadriplegic sailor is making final preparations to sail round Britain in a revolutionary yacht.

Trevor Jones, 38, hopes the two-month trip will attract sponsors for a record-breaking round-the-world voyage.

The global journey, planned for next year, will be the first by a quadriplegic skipper.

The former Royal Navy pilot is using the round-Britain trip to finalise work on the wingsail yacht "Inventure".

International yachtswomen Tracy Edwards is expected to wave him off from Plymouth, Devon, on 6 August.

The yacht will need "fine tuning"

He will be accompanied by another wheelchair sailor and two helpers.

A succession of wheelchair sailors - many of whom follow the project on the internet - will help crew the yacht for a week at a time in a bid for selection for the proposed round-the-world trip.

"We are going to take it easy going round the UK, but it will be the biggest test yet for the boat, which we suspect is still going to need a bit of fine tuning," said Mr Jones.

Mr Jones, who has set up the charitable Inventure Trust for the benefit of severely disabled sailors, has spent about £1m converting the Inventure to enable him and other disabled sailors to sail her.

Navy pilot

The former lieutenant, who has been working on the project for eight years, launched the 60ft craft two years ago in Plymouth.

In December, 1998, he sailed the Inventure to London, were she was unveiled with the help of the Duke of York.

Mr Jones was the Navy pilot who plucked Virgin tycoon Richard Branson to safety after his transatlantic balloon crashed into the Irish Sea in 1988.

Shortly afterwards Mr Jones, a sailing enthusiast, broke his neck in a skiing accident.

Since then, Mr Jones, from Fulham, south west London, has flown the English Channel in an adapted microlight aircraft.

He has also set up the world's first flying school for severely disabled people at Old Sarum, near Salisbury, Wiltshire.