An offshore racing trimaran will make an attempt to break the 15-year-old outright and class speed record for the 635-nautical mile journey from Newport to Bermuda.

The 105ft maxi trimaran Lending Club 2, steer driven by co-skippers Renaud Laplanche and Ryan Breymaier, will launch their record-breaking bid from Newport, Rhode Island, as early as Sunday should conditions prove favourable.

The pair hope to sail Lending Club 2, which is capable of speeds of more than 40 knots in the right conditions, to a Newport-Bermuda record that is significantly faster than the existing time. The attempt will be observed and ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council and Guinness World Records.

The yacht is on standby at the Newport Shipyard while the crew observe the weather and wait for suitable conditions, ideally a moderate following breeze, and manageable conditions, to allow for maximum speed.

The existing record, achieved in 2000 by the 125ft catamaran PlayStation, stands at 38hr 35min 53sec. The catamaran, driven by Steve Fossett, completed its record journey from Newport to Bermuda at an average speed of 16 knots.

Mr Laplanche, a two-times Laser national champion in France, chartered the racing yacht for the 2015 season with the aim of conquering three speed sailing records: from Cowes on the Isle of Wight to Dinard, France; Newport to Bermuda; and the 2,215-nautical mile Transpac (Los Angeles to Honolulu).

The 45-year-old entrepreneur has already achieved one of his objectives having set a world speed record on the English Channel from Cowes to France two weeks ago. Lending Club 2 completed the 138-nautical mile passage in 5:15 at an average speed of 26.36 knots, shaving eight minutes off the previous record that had stood since 2002.

After their attempt at the Newport to Bermuda record, the crew will take the trimaran to Long Beach, California, for their start in the Transpac Race, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on July 18. Crossing the starting line of the longest ocean race in the world will be the culmination of months of effort, the focal point of this season’s two previous record assaults being a win of not only the Transpac course record but also the outright sailing speed record across the Pacific to Hawaii.

Lending Club Sailing, headed up by Mr Laplanche, the chief executive, is an international crew with a mix of American, French and German sailors. Training and racing together since the start of the programme, the same team will race all three record attempts.

The trimaran, designed by VPLP and built in France in 2006, was originally named Groupama 3. After three failed attempts, skipper Franck Cammas and his crew won the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe — 48 days, seven hours, 44 minutes and 52 seconds — in the spring of 2010.

The yacht was then modified for solo sailing and has been sailed to victory in the past two editions of the Route du Rhum, from northern France to Guadeloupe.

When San Francisco-based Mr Laplanche decided that he wanted to return to break the Transpac course record from Long Beach to Hawaii, after closely missing the fastest time in the 2013 edition, he and co-skipper Mr Breymaier, one of America’s most prominent offshore sailors and the holder of the world sailing speed record from New York to San Francisco, negotiated the charter knowing this trimaran was the perfect vessel for their mission. Their first step was to reinstall the taller rig, bringing the yacht back to full power mode, ideal for crewed record-breaking attempts.

News updates, pictures and videos of the record-breaking attempts can be viewed on Facebook or YouTube: www.facebook.com/LendingClubSailing and www.youtube.com/c/LendingClubSailing.

This month the multi one design 70 offshore trimaran Race for Water travelled to Bermuda as part of a scientific sailing expedition to safeguard the oceans from plastic pollution.