Imagine spending three months in a 60ft by 25ft box with one other person and no toilet. Now imagine that person is a ferociously driven professional sailor and you are trapped at sea with them. That is the Barcelona World Race and even its own promotional material asks: “Who Will Crack?”

“I think there will be, not could be, bust-ups, It’s a lot of strain on a relationship. That could be one of the stories of the race,” Mike Golding, the experienced British skipper, said. “Barcelona is a completely new format.”

Golding likes a challenge, but he is not making this particular voyage into the unknown. Instead, he is lying fifth, with Bruno Dubois, in the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre race, which began in Le Havre last Sunday and will finish in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, sometime next weekend. Golding was one of many solo sailors who preferred a 4,500-mile fortnight at sea to the new three-month, 30,000-mile double-handed Barcelona World Race. One reason was the idea of being trapped at sea in a 60ft by 25ft space.

Having someone to talk to, someone to help with those back-breaking sail changes and someone to watch things while you grab even an hour’s sleep might seem like a great idea. It is. No one doubts that these Open 60s, even though they are set up for solo sailing, can be sailed faster by two sailors, but Golding thinks it is only a matter of time before some begin to rub each other up the wrong way.

“We choose our partners very carefully and spend a long time going through a courting period, but most of the guys that step on a boat round the world won’t have had that benefit,” Golding said.

One couple on the Barcelona race will have. Dominique Wavre and Michèle Paret have been together for 18 years since falling in love during the 1988-89 Whitbread round-the-world race. However, they were not on the same boat then, have not sailed with each other competitively very often, and Paret has a utilitarian view of their relationship. “Other people seem interested in this,” Paret said. “We have not thought about it much, we will put it [the relationship] on hold for the duration of the race.”

Alex Thomson takes a businesslike approach, too, especially compared with some of the lyrical French pairs he is up against. Roland Jourdain talked about the joy, when it’s cold and your socks are wet, of having sweet nothings whispered in your ear.

“It’s not a problem,” Thomson said. “Me and Capey [Andrew Cape, his partner] get on well. We’re professionals and we’re here to do a job. My first choice wouldn’t have been down to personalities, it would have been down to getting out of it what I wanted to get out of it.”

Golding thinks the nature of elite sailors might be an issue. “Competitive sailors are competitive and invariably one guy will think he’s doing a better job than the other guy or will feel that he’s holding them back,” Golding said. “I have skippered a fully crewed boat around the world. I think it’s harder with two than ten. With ten it’s very clear you’ve got a structure. With two there’s no structure, so you’ve got potential for anarchy from the get-go. In a relationship it can be the smallest things, it can be who’s eaten the last chocolate biscuit.”