When the 13-tonne racing yacht I was crewing started spinning backwards faster than we had been sailing forwards, I knew this was not going to be an average regatta. We were in the grip of a whirlpool.

It was nearing midnight and we were 150 miles into the Rolex Middle Sea Race, in the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the boot of Italy. I had stayed awake after my watch to see the waters that Homer had described as the graveyard of boats.

I thought it was just a Greek myth that immortalised this place as home to Scylla, the six-headed monster who devoured sailors, and Charybdis, the original bad girl whom Zeus struck with a lightning bolt that changed her into a ship-swallowing vortex. Though I’d grown up sailing, earning my skipper’s certificate in Southampton, I’d never seen indications for whirlpools on any chart. That changed dramatically in the Mediterranean.

Two days earlier, aboard Innovation, a sleek Volvo 60 yacht, we crossed the start line in the Maltese capital of Valetta to the boom of a cannon that startled me so much I dived for the deck. “Hang on,” I said. “I’m here to have a break from being fired at.” Everyone on board laughed.

I’ve spent the past 15 years covering wars — Lebanon, Iran-Iraq, Yemen, Kosovo, East Timor, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Israel-Palestine, Sri Lanka, the two Gulf wars. I needed a break. Six months ago I’d joined the London Corinthian Sailing Club and signed on with the 16 men and women aboard Innovation, led by Peter Hopps, our bearded skipper.

We are fired up, entertained and kicked into action by the energy of Peter’s partner Hilary Cook, spokeswoman for Barclays Stockbrokers in civilian life; she is a rower, sailor and owner of Innovation. It is a joke among the crew (which Hilary happily shares) that she has found the one sure way to keep a man — buy him a big boat.

What brought us amateurs together was a passionate love of sailing that meant we jumped at the chance to join Peter when he entered Innovation in the annual Middle Sea Race round the islands of Stromboli, Lampedusa and Sicily. Ted Turner, founder of CNN and America’s Cup skipper, described it as the most beautiful sailing course in the world.

But for our crew this race was not just a one-off competition; it was the first in our campaign to qualify as an amateur crew for the Fastnet race, one of the greatest yachting challenges in the world. The odds obviously favour the professional teams that compete alongside the likes of us, earning salaries from the millionaire owners of boats that go from race to race all year round, but with Peter Hopps at the helm we have a chance.

The Fastnet course runs 608 miles from the Isle of Wight down the English Channel, dodging headlands and tidal gates, before boats sprint 150 miles across the Irish Sea — where storms can hit at any time of the year — to the Fastnet rock and back to Plymouth.

These days it’s a tough race to qualify to enter, much less win. In 1979, 15 sailors died when a storm struck the Fastnet fleet in the middle of the Irish Sea. Ted Heath, the former prime minister who died last Sunday, was one of the few to finish that year.

This year its organisers stipulate that at least half the crew on any boat must have completed 300 racing miles in the same vessel and with the same skipper.

In our Fastnet campaign, we have tested the rules to the limit and experienced a series of disasters, including the sinking of one boat when her 100ft mast punched a hole in the hull. Despite this, if we finish this weekend’s Channel Race we will have qualified for the Fastnet.

It hasn’t been easy to get this far. Sailing on a racing pure-bred like Innovation is no luxurious dream. Unlike yachts built for cruising, which have floors installed over the hull and finished ceilings, she is bare to keep her weight down. Male crew pee off the stern; only when Hilary insisted did us girls get a curtain around the toilet, known on yachts as the head.