THE owner of a large Swaledale estate hopes to smash a sailing record by steering his yacht round the world in 80 days.

Multi-millionaire Robert Miller, whose property includes the 32,000-acre Gunnerside estate, wants to be the first to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days in a mono-hulled yacht.

The challenge has been completed only in catamarans and trimarans.

Mr Miller, aged 70, owns the Mari Cha IV, which broke the trans-Atlantic crossing record for a single-hulled yacht earlier this month.

It took six days, 17 hours and 52 minutes to sail from New York to the Lizard Point, in Cornwall, smashing the previous record by more than two days.

Mr Miller, ranked 22nd in the Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune estimated at £975m, now wants to see the boat make the round-the-world attempt as soon as 2005.

He grew up near Boston in the United States and served in the Korean War before making his name as a businessman with the Duty Free Shoppers (DFS) group in Hong Kong in the 1960s. He went on to found the Search Group, an international investment company, and acquired British citizenship,

On top of the trans-Atlantic record, Mari Cha IV broke another en route to Britain.

The twin-masted, carbon fibre vessel, capable of up to 40 knots, became the yacht to sail the most miles in 24 hours - more than 500. The previous record, set during the Volvo Ocean Race last year, was 484.