Sailing: Mountain or Mast, I Climb With Heroes

That's it. No more. I am physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I have leaned so far into the barrel of my resource that there has been a danger of me tipping arse-up and floundering like the Duke of Clarence in his Malmsey wine. I would just like some time now to catch up with my family and friends after what has been a gruelling few months. The tank is empty and if anyone catches me going anywhere near TeamEllen.com ever again they have my permission to shoot me.

This has not just been about 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and, of course, 33 seconds of seat-of-the-pants internet. There was all the flapping about in Falmouth beforehand with the red, amber and green status. Is she going, isn't she? What's the weather like in the Azores? Look, I wanted to say, just get on with it please, my nerve ends are in tatters.

But since the start, if Ellen MacArthur thinks it's been tough, then for us avid watchers it has been non-stop, hardly time to draw breath. I reckon I've done every sail change, ground the gears, been up the mast a dozen times and pulled halyards. And I don't even know what a halyard looks like.

Each time I've gone online, it has been to find out how fast the boat has been going (11 knots? Oh for goodness sake. 21 knots? Yippee!!), where it is, how many miles gone, how many to go, what the sea temperature was (as if she might be thinking of taking a dip) and, most important, How Many Days Ahead Of Francis Joyon. I've enlarged the little map with B&Q competing against a tiny virtual Joyon, imagined her not too far away when I was in Cape Town and she was rounding the Cape of Good Hope, wished her a virtual Happy Christmas. Then there have been the webcams, not all that flash if truth be told, but one 40ft wave looks much like another, and besides which she really should have found time to fix the one that had me peering at a small pulley block and little else as if I was a stowaway just lifting the lid on a sail locker.

MacArthur may just have become the first A list internet sports star, for her website kept me, and countless others, in touch where previously, as with Robin Knox-Johnston on his own epic voyage in 1969, or the astronauts disappearing behind the dark side of the moon, the drama lay in not knowing. There has been a sense of personalising what in reality is the most singular of achievements. Since November I have been hooked, line and sinker, by this remarkable endeavour and if Ellen MacArthur's Global Challenge is not out for PlayStation2 before I go cold turkey I shall want to know the reason why.

If all this sounds obsessive then to a degree it is. But not with MacArthur specifically. Rather I carry a deep admiration not to say envy of those whose character, determination and drive takes them into mental territory beyond the comprehension of the average Joe or Josephine.

The first real book I read was Sir John Hunt's The Ascent of Everest, the brilliant colour plate of Tenzing on the summit a lasting image. Other books followed. There was Sir Francis Chichester's The Lonely Sea and the Sky. I read avidly of Joe Brown (the climber, not the bloke with the Bruvvers) and Don Whillans.

Dougal Haston and Doug Scott became heroes, first with Haston's climbing of the Eiger's north face by the direct route and then their scaling of Everest's south-west face and famous bivouac unfeasibly close to the summit. I heard Chris Bonington lecture on Everest the Hard Way. It is all beyond comprehension, not least to someone who suffers from vertigo.

From the cold too, which makes it as bizarre to become engrossed in Ranulph Fiennes's trans-Antarctic trek with Mike Stroud, during which man-hauling exercise it was estimated he burnt more calories per day than any human ever. And could you invent a story such as that of Ernest Shackleton and not be labelled a fantasist?

They don't all survive, of course, but nonetheless Fiennes, the mountaineers or MacArthur carry an instinct alien to most of us and I love it. So I want to hear about how Doug Scott dragged himself down the Ogre on two broken legs in order to survive, or how MacArthur spent four hours 60 feet up her mast in a Southern Ocean gale knowing that if she didn't fix a problem there was a good chance she might die. I shudder just thinking of it.

For now, MacArthur can reflect on a brilliant achievement which has brought a glow of pride to this Guardian journalist at least. I hope she becomes immensely rich now, and not just on memories: she deserves it. Then look out the Clipper route. I'll be with her every yard of the way of course. For now, I have a P&O sailing to Normandy on Friday and the forecast is for it to be a bit wobbly. Not sure I can handle that.