Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and climbing 40 metres up a ship's mast would top the list of many people's most challenging experiences.

But when Anne Luttman-Johnson reaches the end of her four-week journey next month it will be even more remarkable - because she is paralysed from the waist down.

The 44-year-old solicitor, who lives near Oxford, has been confined to a wheelchair for 22 years after a car crash when she was a student.

She aims to become the first paraplegic woman to climb the 40 metre high mast on the ship Tenacious, which is manned by able-bodied and disabled volunteers, when she reaches Antigua in the Caribbean.

She said: "The climb is going to be the hardest thing I will have ever done. It requires a huge amount of strength and stamina to get up there, but the sense of achievement and the view when I get to the top will be amazing.

"I've been doing pull-ups on my bunk beds in the spare room. I've got up to about 70, not in one go, but in the space of around 20 or 25 minutes."

The charity trip has been made possible by the Jubilee Sailing Trust, which owns the Tenacious.

Ms Luttman-Johnson has taken part before but because she is a paraplegic and needs assistance has never been allowed to climb the mast.

She aims to raise more than £2,500 for charity when she attempts the climb.

No paraplegic person has ever managed the feat before on the Tenacious.

Ms Luttman-Johnson said: "I have been hoisted in my wheelchair to the first level and although I am grateful, it's all very passive and I want get myself up on my own steam.

Now a solicitor advising accident victims for Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, she has been paralysed from the waist down following an accident in Gloucestershire in 1984 while she was a law student at Oxford Brookes University.

Before the crash she was a keen sailor and has continued her hobby and completed numerous trips with the Jubilee Sailing Trust, including the English Channel and from Bermuda to New York.

She said: "I love the sailing experience and being at sea with the sound of the sails and the rigging and water lapping into the hull."

Ms Luttman-Johnson is also a member of the Oxford Group of Sailability, part of the Royal Yachting Association, and regularly single-handedly sails her dinghy at Farmoor Reservoir. She is also a keen skier and plans to go scuba diving in the future.

To sponsor her climb, go to www.justgiving.com/annel-j