Andreya Wharry has been counting down the days, preparing herself physically and mentally to challenge world records set by two kings of her sport, the Frenchman Stef de Jong and Flash Austin, “the Nureyev of the Hawaiian surf”. A film crew and members of her support team have already arrived at Watergate Bay, near Newquay in Cornwall, to follow her on this odyssey. Weather permitting, it may be less than a week away.

“I want the record,” the 24-year-old says to camera. “I don’t just want the women’s record (which, at 70 miles, she holds), I want the record.” Her confidence is what one might expect of a past international winner of the television show Gladiators.

The record she covets was established by Austin at 110 miles, the longest continuous journey made by a kitesurfer. Two weeks ago de Jong completed 125 miles, although this new mark has still to be ratified. Wharry, who for several seasons has competed among the world’s top 10 on the Professional Kiteboard Riders Association Women’s Tour, will set off from Watergate Bay for Co Waterford in the southeast of Ireland as early as Friday if conditions are right. Should she make it, she will cover about 140 miles in 10 hours, cruising on a kiteboard propelled by the wind, the bone-crunching waves of the Irish Sea and a custom-made kite with a 20ft wingspan.

“A lot of people are saying I’m mad, but I’ll have two boats with me if things go wrong and they’ll come and get me,” she says with a smile. “One of the boat guys told me this morning that you can get 80ft rollers — that’s a big swell. In the trough of the swell it could grab your line, so I can’t fly my kite too low. The other problem, if my kite goes in the water and I’m in a trough, is that I could be very close to the boat and they may not be able to see me.

“But I prefer to focus on the positives. Last year I completed the 70-mile passage from the Isles of Scilly into Watergate Bay, and that’s given me the confidence to believe I can accomplish this. We’ll be out of sight of land for most of the time and I’ll have no idea which way I’m going apart from by following the support boats. The greatest challenge will be keeping the motivation to continue.

“If the equipment breaks, I’ll be gutted, and I’ll be gutted if the wind drops. But if I’m just too slow, that will be the biggest sense of failure for me. I’m hoping for an average speed of 15-18 knots. This morning, without much wind, I was up to almost 22.”

Kitesurfing evolved in the mid-1990s out of other extreme water sports, combining the most exciting elements of windsurfing and wakeboarding and taking them to vastly greater heights. Elite kitesurfers, on launching themselves from the crest of a wave, can fly 90ft into the air and up to 300ft across the water, performing manoeuvres that are almost balletic. Austin, one of the sport’s pioneers, has been compared to a soaring seabird, so graceful are his moves.

“He’s an awesome exponent who’s helped to popularise the sport all around the world,” Wharry says of the man whose endurance record she is determined to beat. “Like wakeboarding, there are lots of moves, such as the Double Tantrum, which is a heel-side backflip, or the Body Slide, where the rider lies back on the water.

“I’ve been working recently on the Downloop, looping the kite down and popping out of the water as it comes into the power zone, which is where the wind really pulls. That’s the real attraction of kitesurfing, the amount of ‘hang’ time, maybe up to six seconds, and the sense of freedom this gives you, the feeling of power, of height and flight.”

Top riders feel as if they are flying through the air. “A lot of the moves and tricks have come from people attracted to the sport from other disciplines such as surfing, windsurfing, wakeboarding, snowboarding and skateboarding. They all bring their own sport’s moves. They watch wakeboarding videos and think it might work because you can get so much lift with a kite and so much more ‘hang’ time. You never quite get there. You never quite beat it. There’s always a little further you can go and this is what keeps it fresh. No two days can ever be the same.”

With a degree in stained-glass architecture and appearances in films such as Blue Juice, Wharry has never been limited in choice as to how she might spend her days. For a year, she worked as a professional wing-walker with the Cadbury’s Crunchie Flying Circus, waving and effortlessly holding her nerve while the pilot, “doing all the hard work”, performed a succession of loops. She has always been attracted to the extremes.

“It’s not the money, because you might make only $800 (£440) for winning an event on the World Tour,” she says. “I earn some money out of this and some riders, such as Flash Austin, make more. But the lifestyle’s why we do it.” And for the kind of challenge she is about to embark on from Watergate Bay.