Belgium's Bernard Stamm, the current holder of the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing in a monohull, is the race favourite.

BBC: Richards heads round globe

And Dr Stamm is now a privacy advocate at the Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the development of the Firefox web browser.

ECONOMIST: Brain scan

The second, developed with the help of Sid Stamm, a programmer, sends a special message with every page request asking that the user not be tracked.

ECONOMIST: Brain scan