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The life of round-the-world yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur
It’s a far cry from scudding around peaceful Ogston Reservoir, near Alfreton, in an 8ft dinghy, to navigating the tumultuous seas around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.
But it’s a journey which record-breaking solo round-the-world yachtswoman Dame Ellen McArthur has taken in her stride.
She gained international renown in 2005 when she broke the world record for the fastest-ever solo circumnavigation of the globe.
During her epic trip, MacArthur set records for the fastest solo voyage to the Equator, past the Cape of Good Hope, past Cape Horn and back to the Equator again.
Ironically, Ellen Patricia MacArthur was born in 1976 about as far from the sea as is possible in Britain, at Whatstandwell, on the banks of the Derwent, where her parents had a smallholding. Both her parents, Avril and Ken, were teachers, and she has two brothers, Fergus and Lewis.
MacArthur has said she acquired her early interest in sailing from her desire to emulate her idol, Sophie Burke, and also after reading Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons books, set in the Lake District. She has since become the Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust which owns and operates Ransome’s yacht, Nancy Blackett .
But she gained her first real experience of sailing at the age of four on a boat owned by her aunt Thea MacArthur on the East Coast of England.
‘I’ll never forget that feeling as a kid of setting foot on a boat for the first time,’ she told an American cable news channel in 2019. ‘To see this little world – and it was a small boat – but it had little bunks, a little cabin, a kitchen. It kind of struck me that this boat had everything we needed to take us anywhere in the world. And as a child, that opened up everything.’
She continued: ‘I knew then that I wanted to sail around the world. As a kid, that was the goal. I had no idea how to get there – growing up in the Derbyshire countryside, it wasn’t the most obvious career path – but I knew that was what I wanted to do at some stage.’
Recalling her childhood again, she told The Guardian : ‘The biggest gift mum and dad gave me was freedom. When I was 12, I’d be off with my dog, Mac, messing about in the woods or fields and there was never any: ‘Where are you going?’ I was out there having adventures, exploring. They let me follow my dreams.’
But what her parents didn’t know was that young Ellen had been saving her school dinner money for three years to buy a boat. She named that 8ft dinghy Threp’ny Bit – even though decimalisation had taken place five years before she was born. And she taped a real 12-sided threepenny bit coin onto the bow as she learned the rudiments of sailing on tranquil Ogston Reservoir.
MacArthur attended the County Infant and Junior School and the Anthony Gell School in Wirksworth and worked at a sailing school in Kingston-upon-Hull during her holidays.
When she was 17, MacArthur bought a Corribee sailing yacht and named it Iduna. She described the first moment she saw it as ‘love at first sight’, and in 1995 she sailed Iduna on a single-handed circumnavigation of Britain.
In 1997, MacArthur finished 17th in the Mini Transat solo transatlantic race after fitting out her 21f Classe Mini yacht Le Poisson herself while she was living in a French boatyard.
She was named the 1998 British Telecom/Royal Yachting Association Yachtsman of The Year in the UK and Sailing’s Young Hope in France.
In June 2000, MacArthur sailed the monohull Kingfisher from Plymouth to Rhode Island, USA, in 14 days, 23 hours and 11 minutes. This was the record for a single-handed woman monohull east-to-west passage, and also the record for a single-handed woman in any vessel.
International recognition followed in 2001 when MacArthur came second in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world sailing race in Kingfisher. At 24, she was the youngest competitor to complete the voyage and her time of 94 days, four hours and 25 minutes is still the world record for a single-handed, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman.
MacArthur was subsequently appointed an MBE for her services to sport. In 2003, she set up the Ellen MacArthur Trust (now the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust), a registered charity taking young people aged between eight and 24 sailing to help them regain their confidence on their way to recovery from cancer, leukaemia and other serious illnesses.
In 2003, she captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht in the catamaran Kingfisher 2 but was thwarted by a broken mast in the Southern Ocean.
The specially-designed 75ft trimaran named B&Q/Castorama – which took into account MacArthur’s tiny, 5ft 2in height – was unveiled in January 2004.
MacArthur’s first record attempt using the new yacht was to break the west–east transatlantic crossing time in June 2004. She sailed the 27,000 miles from Lower New York Bay to Lizard Point, Cornwall, in seven days, three hours and 50 minutes.
This set a new world record for a transatlantic crossing by a woman, beating the previous record by a crewed boat as well as the singlehanded version.
She began her momentous attempt to break the solo record for sailing non-stop around the world in the B&Q/Castorama in November 2004.
She crossed the finishing line near the French coast at Ushant in February 2005, beating the previous record by one day, eight hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds.
Her time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds is the world record for the 27,354 nautical miles (50,660 km) covered (an average speed of 15.9 knots), beating the previous record set by French sailor Francis Joyon.
She recalled she had no more than 20 minutes sleep at a time during the whole voyage, because she had to be on constant lookout for shipping and other hazards 24 hours a day. Fellow round-the-world yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston described MacArthur’s time as ‘an amazing achievement.’
Following her return to England, it was announced in February 2005 that she was to be made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in recognition of her achievements. It is believed that at the time she was the youngest ever recipient of this honour.
MacArthur was honoured immediately after the event, rather than appearing in due course in the New Year’s or Birthday Honours lists. This swift recognition was reminiscent of accolades previously bestowed on fellow round-the-world sailors, Francis Drake in 1580 and Francis Chichester in 1967.
MacArthur was also granted the rank of Honorary Lieutenant Commander, Royal Naval Reserve on the same day.
She was also appointed a Knight (Chevalier) of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy in March 2008, having lived in France for some time, and being a fluent French speaker.
In 2009 McArthur appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs . Her chosen book, questioned by host Kirsty Young as perhaps being ‘perhaps too useful’, was The SAS Survival Handbook .
‘But it’s a book,’ MacArthur innocently responded. Her luxury item was her fluffy purple ‘slinky’ worm mascot, which she had taken with her on all her marathon voyages.
That same year, MacArthur announced her intention to retire from competitive racing to concentrate on the subject of resource and energy use in the global economy.
In 2010, she unveiled the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), a charity that works with business and education to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
MacArthur now works with local and national governments, scientists and key industry sectors to understand how on land we rely on finite resources in the form of materials, energy and water.
In May 2017, the MacArthur Foundation and the Prince of Wales International Sustainability Unit launched a two million US dollar prize fund for innovations which work towards the management of waste plastics.
The Foundation is also a founding member and partner of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which was launched by the World Economic Forum. MacArthur was awarded the 2022 Princess of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in Oviedo, Spain for her work with her Foundation.
MacArthur published her first autobiography entitled Taking on the World in 2002. Later, she wrote Race Against Time , published in 2005, a day-by-day account of her record journey around the world, and in September 2010, she published a third autobiography entitled Full Circle .
MacArthur now lives in the British capital of yachting – Cowes on the Isle of Wight. There is a display featuring MacArthur at the Wirksworth Heritage Centre.
MacArthur has always reached for the stars, but perhaps the ultimate accolade to her was when Asteroid 20043 Ellenmacarthur, a large rock orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, was named after her in June last year.
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Ellen's story
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After circling the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she returned with new insights into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow.
Ellen MacArthur becomes the fastest solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe
Spending 71 days alone at sea, confronted by the awesome power and dazzling beauty of nature, Ellen began to ponder the fragility of the systems we’ve built. Her boat was her world and her survival was entirely dependent on the limited food, fuel, and other supplies she’d brought with her. She realised that our global economy is no different – it relies completely on the finite resources we extract, use and then dispose of.
"No experience in my life could have given me a better understanding of the word finite."
Ellen MacArthur
When she returned, she began a new journey of learning to understand how our economy works. She realised that the solutions to our biggest problems don’t just lie in the way we make energy, but also in the way we use materials. Everything we use is in limited supply, from the precious metals in our computers and phones to the sand in cement used to make buildings.
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She found that the linear system in which we live is fundamentally flawed. She asked herself what would a successful economy that uses things, rather than uses them up look like? After talking with business leaders, engineers and other experts, she concluded that building a system that could work in the long term is within our reach. But we would need to transform our extractive, throwaway economic model to one that was based on the principles of a circular economy – an economy designed to keep materials in use, eliminate waste and regenerate natural systems.
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- World Biography
Ellen MacArthur Biography
Yachtswoman
Born July 8, 1976, in Derbyshire, England; daughter of Ken (a teacher) and Avril (a teacher) MacArthur.
Addresses: Office —Offshore Challenges Group, Cowes Waterfront, Venture Quays, Castle St., East Cowes PO32 6EZ, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.
Completed solo sail around the British Isles, 1995; finished in seventeenth place in a transatlantic race, 1997; won first place in her class in the France-to-Guadeloupe Route du Rhum challenge, 1998; placed second in the Vendée Globe race, 2001; set new world record in the Route du Rhum race, 2002; set new world record for fastest circumnavigation of the globe as solo sailor, 2005.
Awards: Member of the Order of the British Empire, 2002; created dame by Queen Elizabeth II, 2005.
Acrowd of thousands greeted 28-year-old Ellen MacArthur on a chilly February day in 2005 when she and her boat, the B&Q, arrived in Falmouth, England, after completing a 71-day around-the-world solo voyage. MacArthur's achievement made her the youngest woman ever to circumnavigate the globe on a solo sail, but she also set a new world record for the feat. "There were some times out there that were excruciatingly difficult," a New York Times report quoted her as saying. "I have never in my life had to dig as deep as I did in this trip, and not just once or twice, but over consecutive weeks."
Born in July of 1976, MacArthur grew up in a landlocked part of England's north, Derbyshire, in a town called Whatstandwell. The middle child of two schoolteachers, she was four years old when she experienced her first sea voyage, out on a dinghy with her aunt, and she was entranced from that point onward. Over the next several years, MacArthur read anything she could find about sailing and the oceans of the world. By saving her lunch money she managed to buy her own dinghy at the age of 13, which she kept in her bedroom. Though she had considered becoming a veterinarian, just before her high-school finishing exams she fell ill with glandular fever and was confined to bed; she spent hours watching the progress of the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, and decided to pursue yachting as a career instead.
At the age of 18, MacArthur made a historic solo trip around the British Isles. Two years later, in 1997, she took part in a solo race across the Atlantic Ocean, in which she made a respectable seventeenth-place finish. In February of 2001, she made a stunning finish in what is known as one of the world's toughest sailing challenges, the solo Vendée Globe race. With a time of 94 days and a second-place win, she was the youngest person ever to finish it, and also set a new women's world record in yachting for solo circumnavigation. One of her preparations for the trip was teaching herself to sew on a piece of pigskin, for MacArthur knew of a sailor who had bitten off his tongue during a solo race when the boat's boom struck him; she wanted to be prepared to sew hers back on in the event that the same happened to her.
MacArthur's boat in the Vendée Globe was a monohull named the Kingfisher in honor of her generous sponsor, a British retail group. In 2002, she won the Route du Rhum, a solo transatlantic race from St. Malo, France, to the archipelago of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies. The following year, she attempted to break the world record for fastest nonstop circumnavigation in the Jules Verne Trophy race, but her boat's mast snapped in the Indian Ocean and she was forced to drop out.
Back on land, MacArthur became a partner in the Offshore Challenges Group, a project management company in adventure sports. It was her sponsor for her solo trip, which began on November 28, 2004. This time, her boat was a 75-foot multihull, which is faster on the high seas, but also prone to capsizing. Only one other solo sailor had circumnavigated the globe in a multihull, Francis Joyon of France, and he had done it just the year before. MacArthur's voyage would last 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes, 33 seconds, and she survived on stores of freeze-dried meals and desalinated sea water. The trip was an arduous one, with tremendous physical and mental hardships, but perhaps worst of all was the need to keep constant watch on the unpredictable sea: MacArthur could sleep only in 15- to 30-minute intervals. The B&Q was regularly buffeted by wind gusts that could reach 65 miles per hour, and twice she was forced to scale her boat's 98-foot mast to repair the main sail.
Fans of MacArthur's avidly followed her progress on a Web site, www.teamellen.com. For a time, she lost her lead over Joyon's voyage because of wind conditions, but then a storm pushed her ahead and she began to make excellent progress. In an online diary she kept, excerpts from which were reprinted in London's Guardian newspaper, she wrote of South Atlantic storms on January 15. "Everything is creaking and groaning and smashing and grinding it's just terrible, and you go over three waves and you close your eyes and hope it's okay, then the fourth one whack. I'm sure something is going to break." Two weeks later, she reported a near-collision. "I saw a whale very, very close to the boat it was just in front of us, and we sailed right over it," she wrote on January 29. "It went underneath our starboard float and, as it went underneath us, it blew its air tanks out and its nose came out of the water."
On Monday, February 7, MacArthur and her boat crossed an imaginary finish line between Ushant, France, and the Lizard peninsula of the southwest coast of England. After a journey of 27,353 miles, she arrived at the Cornwall port of Falmouth the following day, and was met by a crowd of 8,000 well-wishers. She beat Joyon's record by an entire day, and was informed that Queen Elizabeth II had bestowed the title "Dame" on her for her achievement.
MacArthur lives in Cowes, the epicenter of British yachting, on the Isle of Wight. Her achievement was the latest in a long line of notable record-breaking sails by British sailors, which dates back to Sir Francis Drake's journey around the world in 1580. Thrilled to be back on land and with people after her long solo experience, she nevertheless admitted that her trip had its joys. "Some days you have a huge rolling sea and the boat is sailing beautifully," a report in the Guardian quoted her as saying, "and then there is no better place to be on Earth."
Periodicals
Guardian (London, England), February 8, 2005; February 9, 2005.
Independent (London, England), March 21, 2003, p. 4. New York Times, February 9, 2005.
"MacArthur Sails into Record Books," BBC News.com, http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/sailing/4229079.stm (February 10, 2005)
"Swift Sailing," SI.com, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/more/02/07/bc.eu.spt.sai.macarthur.ap/index.html (February 9, 2005).
—Carol Brennan
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On this day in 2005: Ellen MacArthur smashes round the world sailing record
Macarthur completed her solo voyage in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds on february 7, 2005., article bookmarked.
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Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur smashed the record for the fastest single-handed circumnavigation of the globe 18 years ago.
MacArthur, then 28, completed her 27,354-mile odyssey in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds on February 7, 2005.
With an average speed on the water of 15.9 knots, she beat the previous record set by Frenchman Francis Joyon by more than a day.
It was an astounding achievement given that many in sailing had predicted Joyon’s mark, set only in 2004, would last many years. Joyon had taken more than 20 days off the previous record in completing his journey in 72 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes and 22 seconds.
MacArthur, from Cowes on the Isle of Wight, set out on November 28, 2004 in her 75ft trimaran called B&Q/Castorama. She crossed the finish line off Ushant, France , at 10.25pm on February 7.
During an incident-packed voyage she narrowly avoided colliding with a whale, suffered burns to her arm and was battered and bruised after climbing the 90ft mast to carry out repairs.
She also had to battle gales and icebergs in the Southern Ocean , deal with light winds in the Atlantic and cope with a host of other technical problems.
Despite that, she managed to stay ahead of Joyon’s time for the vast majority of her adventure. She also collected another five records on the way, beating Joyon’s time to the Equator, the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin in Australia, Cape Horn and back to the Equator.
“I am elated, I am absolutely drained, it has been a very tough trip,” MacArthur said. “When I crossed the line I felt like collapsing on the floor and just falling asleep. I was absolutely over the moon.”
MacArthur, originally from Derbyshire , was given a Damehood soon after her completing her quest.
Her record stood for almost three years before being reclaimed by Joyon. He took another 14 days off the time, finishing in 57 days, 13 hours and 34 minutes.
The record is currently held by another Frenchman, Francois Gabart, who completed the journey in 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds in December 2017.
MacArthur, who still holds the record for the fastest woman to sail solo around the world, retired in 2010 and set up the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which campaigns for a circular economy to eliminate waste and pollution.
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Navigating the circular economy: A conversation with Dame Ellen MacArthur
At the age of 28, in early 2005, yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur achieved what was then the fastest single-handed circumnavigation of the globe, sailing more than 26,000 miles in just over 71 days. While learning how to cope with limited supplies of water, food, and fuel, MacArthur quickly discovered just how important her scarce resources were to her survival. After consulting experts in the private and public sector, she retired from professional racing and in September 2010 launched the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, with the goal of “accelerating the transition to a regenerative, circular economy.” In this video interview, she explains why moving toward an economic system that retains and reuses resources makes both environmental and business sense. An edited transcript of her remarks follows.
Interview transcript
When you set off around the world, you take with you everything that you need for your survival. So for three, three and a half months, you’re on a boat with everything that you have. You know that you only have so much food, you only have so much diesel, and you become incredibly connected to those resources that you use.
And as you watch those resources go down, you realize just what “finite” means, because in the Southern Ocean, you’re 2,500 miles away from the nearest town. There is no more, you can’t stop and collect more.
I’d never made that translation to anything other than sailing, but suddenly I realized our global economy is no different. It’s powered on resources which are ultimately finite. And I suddenly realized that there was a much greater challenge out there than sailing around the world, which was, in fact, trying to find a global economy that could function in the long term.
Navigating the circular economy
The best way to illustrate a circular economy is to look at our current linear economy. Our economy today is predominantly driven through taking in material at the ground, making something out of it, and ultimately that material, that product, gets thrown away.
Within a circular economy, from the outset, you design the economy to be regenerative. So you design a car for remanufacture, you design a car for disassembly, for de-componentization. So that the materials that sit within the global economy that currently flow off the end of the conveyer belt can go back in. Which involves everything from different financing of those products and materials to different business models: Do we sell? Do people pay per use for those materials?
If you can understand what a circular economy is, if you set that as the goal, then you know that every decision that you make within your business can take you one stage closer to that point.
That’s very much like sailing, because in sailing it’s not just the speed of the boat. It’s the construction of the boat. It’s whether you’ve got everything in the first-aid kit. It’s the weather the boat is sitting in. It’s the water the boat’s sitting in. What’s happening to the water, what’s happening to the icebergs, what’s happening to the weather? What effect is that having on everything else? You have to look at the big picture, because the moment you focus on the immediate it’s all over.
Circular manufacturing
When commodities become more expensive, as they have been doing over the last ten years, the solution has often been, “Let’s put less material in the product.” But ultimately, you get to a point where you can’t recover that material, because it’s in such small quantities in that product that you can no longer get it back.
Actually, within a circular economy, you may use reverse logic. You may say, “We’ll put more of that material in, and we’ll design it in a way so we know we can get that material back.” Because we will ultimately have a material flow which includes that product coming back to us to be remanufactured or disassembled.
In our current economy, we have different levels of quality of washing machines that we could buy. You would have your lower-end machine, which is designed to do about 2,000 washes, which will cost you about $0.27 a wash. Your high-end machine, which evidently costs more to buy up front—with more research and development, more materials within it—that will cost you $0.12 a wash.
Within a circular economy, what you would allow is for everybody to have access to that higher-end machine, that only costs $0.12 a wash, because the manufacturer designs it so they get that machine back. They look after it. You pay per wash. You don’t buy the machine up front.
So you don’t have to pay tax when you buy it, you don’t have to pay landfill tax when you throw it away, and the manufacturer—through changing the system—guarantees they can get that machine back so they can upgrade it, they can repair it. They can put it back into their system to recover the raw materials for the machines of the future. You change the entire economic system. The manufacturer makes a third more profit, and the user pays significantly less for a better product.
Making it happen
Obviously, our goal at the foundation is to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy. So we’ve put short-term goals within that, such as building a program for 100 companies, including regions and emerging innovators, to start to unlock the opportunity of the circular economy through collaboration, through working together, through looking at legislation.
I think there’s a massive opportunity for emerging markets in this space. And to think that you have the opportunity to lock into a circular model rather than a linear model, that’s a huge economic opportunity. To think that the users of those products can have a better product for less money; that product can ultimately return, creating employment in the remanufacturing or the de-componentization of the product. And then ultimately the manufacturer makes more money because they know they get that component back. That, for an emerging market, is incredible. It allows them to leapfrog our system and gain even more advantage.
Dame Ellen MacArthur is a yachtswoman and founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. She is also founder of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, and received a knighthood in 2005.
Explore a career with us
Ellen MacArthur's journey
Ellen MacArthur is sailing around the world—non-stop, 24-hours a day and utterly alone.
She’s slammed about by shifting winds, hurtling up and down 50-foot waves in oceans indifferent to whether she lives or dies.
Ellen is 28 years old and determined to become the fastest skipper on the planet—man or woman.
Will she break the record for solo circumnavigation of the world, or will the very attempt break her?
Five years ago, Ellen captured the imagination of armchair adventurers when she raced solo, non-stop around the world, against some of her sport’s top sailors.
Back then, she put her life on the line to keep her boat sailing but it paid off. She came in second, defeating 22 older, more seasoned captains. She went around the world in 94-days.
But Ellen wasn’t content with taking silver.
The skipper to beat is a Frenchman, Francis Joyon, 22 years older than she.
In 2004 he circumnavigated the globe last year, in a whisker under 73 days, a blistering time, a record expected to stand for years and years.
But not if Ellen has her way.
Ellen MacArthur: At the end of the day you have to believe you can do it.Mark Turner, partner: This is her sport, this is what she loves.
Mark Turner has been Ellen’s business partner, and manager of her sailing ventures, for the past 9-years.
Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: Did you think that she would circle the globe without breaking down?Turner: We gave it sort of 50/50 chance of going around. And then if you got around maybe one in three, one in four chance of breaking the record.
So on a grey November afternoon in 2004, as hundreds of well-wishers in the British port of Falmouth waved her goodbye, Ellen sets off for the starting line to sail around the world again.
Murphy: Ellen, why the world you’ve done the world. What was different this time?MacArthur: This was a new challenge. This was different, it was very pure.
It was pure because no other sailors out there racing against Ellen—only the clock.
November 28, 2004 official time keepers start the race. She’s off. Nerves pulled taut, her goal clear-eyed and simple. She has to be back in 72 days.
MacArthur: When you start you’re trying to achieve staying alive and getting home. If you can do both of those, then you stand a chance of breaking the record.
Ellen is into the Atlantic headed south on a course sanctioned by the elite sailors who attempt these kind of records.
Her 26,000 mile route will take her down around Africa into the most treacherous leg of the journey, circling Antarctica through massive seas, dodging icebergs, then up the Atlantic along South America, across the equator again, back to where she began off the coast of France.
Twelve cameras on board are recording her voyage and recording her personal diary.
Her trip was tough—and not the least of it is keeping the reins on an explosive Formula-one style racing yacht, a million dollar, 75-foot trimaran: a new kind of boat for Ellen, custom-designed for this record challenge, a frisky sailing machine as fast as it is unforgiving if pushed too hard.
If a multi-hull goes over and capsizes—it stays upside down with the mast pointing to the ocean floor.
MacArthur: There’s a price to pay for the speed, and that is danger. And to push that hard on a boat—it does take a lot out of you and is incredibly stressful.
She’s nicknamed the boat Moby and below deck, her world for the next two-months is Moby’s 7 feet wide, 5 ½ feet high cabin, tailored to her petite dimensions.
There’s a bunk she’ll rarely use and a galley—a sink, one gas burner, and a kettle. Food is freeze dried.
She’ll be alone but not out of touch. As you can imagine, Moby is equipped with state of the art devices: satellite phones, computers, Web cams.
MacArthur (video diary): It’s been pretty hard the first few days were not far off terrible. I was very stressed.
She is sailing day and night. There’s no comforting routine, no mealtime, no bedtime. Sleep means grabbing naps—five, ten, twenty minutes at a time. Six hours in all, if she’s lucky.
MacArthur: You’ve got to sleep. And sometimes you can’t, you just can’t. You lie down, almost comatose, and you hear a noise and you have to go out and find out what it is.
Ellen has to be more than just a helmsman. She is a mechanic, electrician, engineer, meteorologist, and navigator.
MacArthur: You’re on your own. If something goes wrong with the boat, you have to fix it. It’s really really hard and physically exhausting.
And of course, something big does go wrong, a potential end to her challenge.
MacArthur (diary): I’m really very nervous at the moment, we’ve got a bit of a problem with the generator.
December 12, day 14 -- two weeks into the race, the generator is malfunctioning. It’s guzzling oil, far more than she’s stowed onboard. The sails drive Ellen forward, but the generator powers all her computer gear, her auto-pilot steering device and the desalinator that makes drinking water.
Without a generator she’s little more than a recreational sailor.
MacArthur: So I then had to go to the back up generator, which we had.
The back-up generator she carries is cursed, too. It gets so hot it starts melting Moby’s wiring.
MacArthur: And so I was literally living in a boat that was full of noxious fumes.
In desperation, with 30-mile an hour headwinds knocking her about, Ellen does some last ditch plumbing and routes chilly air from outside the boat into the cabin. The overheated generator inside is satisfied. It cools down.
The challenge continues.
MacArthur (diary): Back to the fun part, let’s get sailing and let’s get some good boat speeds and record-breaking pace.
With the generator problem solved, Ellen clocks her best 24 hours since setting out: 480-miles sailed at an average of 20 knots—that may sound slow but it’s blazing time for a sailboat.
On December 17, day 19 of her voyage, Ellen rounds the Cape of Good Hope, on the southern tip of Africa—the marker for her entrance into the Southern ocean, where she’ll circle Antarctica. She is a solid 10-hours ahead of the pace clock.
But this isn’t the time or place to celebrate, knowing very well what lies ahead.
MacArthur: You’re about to go into the Southern Ocean on a 75-foot trimaran. And you know it’s gonna be very very stressful.
How stressful? How about 50-foot seas, gale force winds, snow, hail and icebergs shrouded in fog—conditions that could send the best of boats and skippers to an unmarked watery grave.
It’s nearing Christmas, three-weeks and 8,000 miles into Ellen’s journey.
Heavy winds of over 45-miles an hour have propelled her into the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica almost a day ahead of her pace clock.
Ellen MacArthur (diary): You know that the risks are higher. You know that the chance of capsizing in the south is higher.
She is at the bottom of the earth, about as alone as a human can get. The nearest land thousands of miles away and the ocean ahead, beyond treacherous: mountainous waves of ice water, boat shredding icebergs, seen and unseen.
MacArthur (diary): You have to be more on your toes, you have to be more ready—you just have to be ready.
Solo captains, like Ellen, have sailed this ocean and never been heard from again. Capsized, skippers have waited up to four-days to be rescued.
Everything Ellen’s ever learned on the water is put to the test.
MacArthur: I’m pretty worried about this storm, really worried about this storm. My life is in Moby’s hands.
No one should ever have a White Christmas like Ellen’s: Gusts are topping out at more than 50-miles an hour. White boiling spray engulfing Moby, the boat she regards as a living, breathing companion.
MacArthur: It’s rough and I’m pretty wet. The generator stopped working 10 times this morning. I’ve got leaks on my bunk and my bunk’s soaked and not really a great Christmas.
And there would be no let up until the New Year. Ellen and Moby would punch through one storm, only to find themselves caught in another.
Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent: Ellen, are you scared, wired, what’s the word?MacArthur: You can’t do a trip like that and say that you’re not scared, no. Because there are times when things are very stressful.
Down there, Ellen only emerges from the tiny cabin to adjust a sail. Ice cold waves consume her. The sails are several times Ellen’s body weight, and she manually grinds them into place. A 45 minute chore, she does countless times a day.
MacArthur (diary): I can actually feel the air burning in my throat from breathing so heavily to get the job done. But we’re there. Oh—a big wave, (boat shakes) here we go bouncing around. I’m going to try and get in my bunk and get some sleep because so far I’ve had absolutely nothing.
She sleeps in her wet gear, or tries to, tuned to every groan, every jolt Moby makes.
MacArthur: I’d lie in my bunk trying to sleep and I’d be, my teeth would be clenched together because I was so stressed... You’re so tired and you know you got to eat and you say to yourself do I eat or do I sleep. It’s a choice. There were virtually no times on the trip that i wanted to eat. I ate because I had to. There were times when I made a meal—thought I’d eaten it and it was an hour before I realized I hadn’t that’s how tired you are.
With the arrival of the New Year and the end of the almost spirit-breaking storms, Ellen has made it half way through her trip, still in one piece.
On January 1, 2005 -- day thirty-four, she is two-days ahead of the pace clock. As she passes beneath New Zealand, it is time to finally celebrate a late Christmas.
MacArthur (diary): Happy Christmas everybody. It’s New Year and I’m opening my Christmas box. Just to see things that people have given you that you didn’t know were on the boat. And here you are in the middle of nowhere and it was just fantastic. Aw, mom, a stuffed animal...
But her exhiliration at the half way point is short-lived.
MacArthur: There’s actually an iceberg over there. Unbelievable.
Ellen thinks she’s steered clear of iceberg country. But there they are. Two of them. 160 feet tall just two miles off her bow. Only 4 hours of daylight remain.
MacArthur: It’s going to be a long night, a very long night.
Icebergs, then more absolutely bad weather: winds shifting maddeningly—50 degrees this way then that. Moby is accelerating wildly, 45-mile an hour gusts buffeting her sails.
MacArthur: There are times you’re sitting there thinking “You know if we get another five knots of wind, we’re—we’re history.”
What else could happen? The hail storm. The boat is coated in an inch and half of icy glaze.
Murphy: Did you ever feel you were out of control?MacArthur: A few times. There was nothing you could do about it by that stage. So you just have to survive it. You have to just hang on, and hope.
And she does—bludgeoned with fatigue and lack of sleep—after almost a month in the Southern Ocean—on January 12, day 45, Ellen steers north again and rounds Cape Horn, the southern most tip of South America.
She’d survived two-thirds of her journey, sailing 19,000 miles.
And the upside of the awful storms was that she made great time. Leaving the Southern Ocean she was four-days ahead of the pace clock.
But still there is no premature celebration.
MacArthur: There was no point getting excited. And anything could happen. I could not have been more right because just look at what happened in the South Atlantic.
Ellen MacArthur’s challenge is going into the tank.
January 13, day 46 -- sailing north now off South America. Ellen and the boat she calls Moby are four-days ahead of the record setting time.
But Ellen is paying a heavy price for the last leg, around the South Pole.
Ellen MacArthur (video diary): I’d never been that tired before. I’d never taken myself to that limit before. You’re just completely and utterly connected to the boat.
A week into the South Atlantic and it’s a new problem altogether: barely any wind at all.
MacArthur: It’s more frustrating to have no wind than to have too much. With no wind you can’t do anything. You can’t move the boat you can’t go somewhere else.
Day after day, and still no wind, Ellen finally starts to unravel.
MacArthur: I’m so tired. I just so want to get out of this. We want to go that way and we can’t. I’ve just so had enough. It’s not a moment that tips you over, it’s just You are right on the edge. You are living on the edge. And yet, sometimes it’s just too much for you.
The lead is slipping away from her. Ellen’s making only 200 miles a day, half her pace in the Southern Ocean.
MacArthur: All that effort, all that energy, I’m not going to give up.
Off Brazil, nearing the equator, Ellen finds some wind finally. But her four-day lead has dwindled to two. On shore, Ellen’s project manager, Mark Turner, learns that the boat is becoming as undone as her skipper.
Mark Turner, partner: The main sail was going to come crashing down and destroy the mast basically.
The mainsail has broken away from the top of the mast. If Ellen can’t repair the bracket that holds the sail in place, her challenge is over. She’ll have to climb the 100-foot tall mast to fix it.
Turner: It was a very, very nervous time. And it was, you know, maybe it is all over.
Ellen is out of her camera’s view for most of her climb, but she does have a comment for it as she pulls herself up the shuddering mast.
MacArthur (diary): I hate this job sometimes.
Ellen’s satchel flies about as Moby lurches in 20-foot swells. No wind, and now way too much when she needs it least.
MacArthur: You go up there and you’re literally thrown against the mast time and time and time again.
In the cabin later, a badly black and blued skipper has successfully repaired the sail that threatened to end the race.
MacArthur: I’m pretty sore really. Every time I try and sleep, I wake up sweating and feeling like I’ve been in a fight.
The boat is fixed but the race is going into the tank. Ellen had to sail off course to repair her sail, and is now just one day ahead of the pace to beat.
MacArthur: Well, the good thing is that it’s beautiful, the bad thing is that it’s not good for the record—no wind again, no wind again.
With just two-weeks remaining to best the record time, her challenge is looking like a nice try. She’s 13-hours behind, and Moby’s barely moving.
MacArthur: I don’t know if we can still break record. I believe we can. I’m never going to give up not until the last second hand ticks over.
Sure enough, the very next day, trade winds swell Moby’s sails and Ellen is clicking along again—a respectable 300-miles in one day—and best of all, ahead of the clock again by six-hours.
January 27, day 60, Ellen crosses the equator.
MacArthur: This is to celebrate crossing the equator for the second time, Let’s hope we’re going home for a record.
On day 65, Ellen is blazing the North Atlantic, a solid three-days ahead of the clock.
To break the record, she has to get there by four minutes after seven the morning of February 9th, eight-days away. The prize is within her grasp.
MacArthur: Until I cross that line, it’s not happened. And I find that very difficult to deal with and it’s a huge pressure, huge pressure.
As soon as the favorable winds die and her lead has dwindled to two-days, the weather changes again. Gales. Filthy weather.
MacArthur: The sea state is really bad and the boat—she’s going to get annihilated. With four-days left to break the record, Ellen is off the coast of Spain, 700-miles from the finish line, bucking 35-mile an hour headwinds. There’s nothing to do but survive the squalls in one-piece and hope the lead has held.Turner: That last storm was a new test for the boat and for her. When she got through that then she definitely had an air of some kind of expectation.February 7, day seventy-one: The storm chewed-up some time but she’s still a day ahead of the record and fast approaching the finish line. MacArthur: That afternoon, I really thought it was possible. A friend of mine flew over who’s a photographer in a helicopter. And I remember—that’s the first time I actually thought, “I’m gonna do this.” And when you see the pictures from that helicopter, you can see it in my face. It’s amazing.
And later that night, out there in the inky black is the stab of the lighthouse, the finish line.
MacArthur: Seeing that light, knowing that was there, that’s it that’s the end was extraordinary.
She does it. At 10:29 p.m. of February 7th, 2005, Ellen crosses the finish line in triumph and proves herself the fastest sailor on the planet.
Ellen Macarthur, age 28, had circled the globe, sailing 27,000 miles in 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds.
She’d shaved one-and-a-third days off the Frenchman’s record.
MacArthur: It was just magic, it was fantastic.
By daybreak, Ellen and Mark are reunited.
Turner: For me it was relief that she was back first and foremost. And yes, that we’d broken the record. But primarily that it was over and she was safe.
A flotilla of pleasure boats escorts Ellen from the finish line back to her native England.
MacArthur: It was elation mixed with relief: relief that it was over, but elation that we’d just done it.Murphy: Was it worth it Ellen? What you put yourself through?MacArthur: Was it worth it? I’m still here, and I’m still smiling, so I think it was worth it. But it was not easy.Murphy: People say that Ellen MacArthur is the greatest sailor in the world.MacArthur: I’m not the greatest sailor in the world. I just grit my teeth and get on with it. I just love what I do and I’m very lucky to do it.
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Outstanding Achievement Award Ellen MacArthur, yachtswoman, who at 28 years of age, sailed single handed round-the-world.
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Yachtswoman sails to solo record
LES SABLES D'OLONNE, France -- British solo yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur has sailed home to a hero's welcome in the Vendee Globe round-the-world yacht race.
Thousands gathered in the French port of Les Sables d'Olonne to see the 24-year-old cross the finishing line and set major milestones in sailing.
Flares lit up the evening sky and horns sounded as Ellen, just 5ft 2in (1.52 metres) tall, completed what is arguably the toughest round-the-world yacht race.
Ellen's epic journey is a record breaker. She is the fastest woman to sail around the globe. She is the youngest ever finisher in the Vendee race. And she is only the second person to sail round the world solo in less than 100 days.
More than 35,000 people gathered in the French port on Sunday to cheer her home after completing the 24,000-mile race in her boat Kingfisher in 94 days, four hours, 25 minutes and 40 seconds.
As MacArthur came in towards the harbour, she was greeted by a massive crowd waving and cheering, many hanging off the harbour wall to catch a glimpse of the young woman who is considered a heroine in France.
Moments later, an exhausted but elated Ellen stepped ashore, clearly delighted to be reunited with her family and friends.
Twenty-three boats set off from Les Sables d'Olonne, on the French west coast, on November 9. Fifteen are still out at sea racing.
Ellen said: "I started the race on 9 November with one objective -- finishing. I still can't believe that I managed to get second place, but my thoughts and prayers go out to those competitors who are still at sea.
"It is extremely tough, and I am relieved that I won't have to make any tactical decisions for a while."
She added: "I'm amazed at the encouragement and support that I've received from the public, and I can't ever begin to tell you how much difference it made to receive all their e-mails.
"The years of preparation have been a real team effort and I would like to thank my supporters, friends, suppliers, sponsors and the Kingfisher Challenge's shore team for making this possible."
The Vendee Globe is one of the toughest and most dangerous races, testing human endurance to the limit in a solo navigation of the world.
On her journey she has had to face the icy Southern Ocean, treacherous Cape Horn and the expanse of the Atlantic, taking her sleep in 15 minute bursts.
Several times she has had to climb her yacht's 30-metre (90ft) high mast in storm-tossed seas to carry out essential repairs.
For several days she has been sailing her yacht mainly at half sail and with extreme care after forestay rigging that strengthens the mast snapped on Wednesday.
If the mast had broken, it would have been a heartbreaking end for MacArthur as her boat would have had to be towed back into port.
On Sunday morning she was able to hoist a full sail for the first time in light winds after seeking advice from the designers.
Ellen's parents Avril and Ken and younger brother Fergus flew over their daughter in the Bay of Biscay in a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter.
Kingfisher spokeswoman Dana Bena said: "Ellen could not contain herself -- she was jumping all over the boat."
MacArthur has astounded many in the sailing world by matching the eventual winner Michel Desjoyeaux almost mile for mile in the latter stages of the race.
On January 29 for one day, the relatively inexperienced MacArthur, who is now based on the Isle of Wight, actually took a slim lead, and became the first woman ever to be a leader in the race.
On Saturday the Frenchman, 35, who won the tough race from MacArthur by only 243 miles, praised his adversary.
MacArthur only lost ground after bad luck in the crucial final stages of the contest with Desjoyeaux.
Before the forestay snapped, MacArthur had to spend the night of January 30 changing her port daggerboard with the starboard one after it hit a submerged container.
The collision also damaged her port rudder and the delay while repairs were made saw her slip behind Desjoyeaux who quickly extended his lead.
Despite second place, many in the sailing world consider her achievement to be greater than Desjoyeaux's.
Frenchman sails to victory February 11, 2001 Sailor Ellen MacArthur making waves February 9, 2001 Key dates in MacArthur's race February 9, 2001 Quotes from Ellen MacArthur February 9, 2001
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Ellen MacArthur
Leadership Culture, Diversity, Getting on and Giving back Ellen MacArthur is everything that is good about the Heart of the Midlands
Leadership Culture, Diversity, Getting on and Giving back, Ellen MacArthur is everything that is good about the Heart of the Midlands
Ellen MacArthur solo long-distance yachtswoman
Ellen MacArthur was born July 8, 1976, in Whatstandwell, Derbyshire. At just 28, she set a world record for the fastest solo nonstop voyage around the world on her first attempt. On 7 February 2005, she completed a 27,000 mile voyage in 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes, beating Francis Joyon's record by well over a day.
MacArthur began sailing at age four
MacArthur began sailing with her aunt at age four and spent her spare time reading sailing books. Four years later she started saving her school dinner money to buy her first boat. In 1994 MacArthur launched her career in yachting by working on an 18.3-metre (60-foot) vessel and teaching sailing to adults at the David King Nautical School in Hull. She achieved her yachtmaster and instructor qualifications at age 18, and in 1995 she won the Young Sailor of the Year Award after sailing solo around Great Britain. The following year she finished third in her first transatlantic race, from Quebec to Saint-Malo, France. In 2003 she founded the Ellen MacArthur Trust to introduce young cancer patients to the joys of sailing.
Ellen MacArthur in the eye of the storm
At first light on January 30th 2003, Ellen MacArthur and her team of expert sailors cross the start line of their mission into 'The Eye of the Storm'. Watch their rocky beginning out on the high water with BBC Worldwide .
Ellen MacArthur Biography - British Sailor
Crossing the world’s most dangerous seas in 71 days, 14 hrs, 18 mins, 33 sec
In November 2004, seeking to challenge the record for a nonstop solo voyage around the world, MacArthur set out from Falmouth, Cornwall, in her 23-metre (75-foot) carbon-fibre trimaran B & Q. The standing record, seemingly unassailable, had been set only nine months earlier by French sailor Francis Joyon. After departing southward from the official starting point of Ushant, France, she set speed records to the Equator, the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin, Australia.
A world record
After reaching the Southern Ocean and turning northward, she suffered a badly burned arm while changing generators. Three days later she completed her best 24-hour run—807.2 km (501.6 miles)—before passing Cape Horn. Four days south of the Equator she fell behind Joyon’s time for the first time, but when she recrossed that line on day 60, she had made up enough time to be 10 hr 50 min ahead of his record. MacArthur reached France to complete the 44,012-km (27,348-mile) journey through the world’s most dangerous seas in 71 days 14 hr 18 min 33 sec, breaking Joyon’s record by 1 day 8 hr 35 min 49 sec (Joyon would later reclaim the record in 2008).
The fastest solo nonstop voyage around the world on her first attempt
Shortly after her return to Falmouth harbour amid a flotilla of boats and cheering crowds, MacArthur became the youngest woman in modern history to be made Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE). In 2009 she announced that she had retired from competitive sailing.
The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow. She proposes a bold new way to see the world's economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around.
In 2010 MacArthur launched the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which promoted efforts aimed at reinventing traditional modes of economic production and consumption. She chronicled her exploits in the books Taking on the World (2002), Race Against Time (2005), and Full Circle (2010).
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Ellen MacArthur is a retired English sailor and a successful solo long-distance yachtswoman. She holds the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe and is the founder of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Learn about the life and achievements of Dame Ellen MacArthur, the British yachtswoman who broke the world record for the fastest solo nonstop circumnavigation in 2005. Find out how she started sailing, founded the Ellen MacArthur Trust and Foundation, and wrote books about her adventures.
Learn about the life and achievements of Ellen MacArthur, who broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe in 2005. From sailing on Ogston Reservoir as a child to becoming a Dame and a sailing legend, discover her journey and passion.
Ellen MacArthur shares how she pursued her passion for sailing from the age of 4 and broke the solo record around the world at 30. Learn how her goal-oriented mindset and her work for a circular ...
Learn how Ellen MacArthur, the fastest solo sailor around the world, became a circular economy advocate and founded the Foundation in her name. Discover how a circular economy can tackle global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution.
Yachtswoman Born July 8, 1976, in Derbyshire, England; daughter of Ken (a teacher) and Avril (a teacher) MacArthur. ... Acrowd of thousands greeted 28-year-old Ellen MacArthur on a chilly February day in 2005 when she and her boat, the B&Q, arrived in Falmouth, England, after completing a 71-day around-the-world solo voyage. MacArthur's ...
Learn about the life and achievements of Dame Ellen MacArthur, the youngest woman to complete the Vendée Globe and the fastest solo circumnavigator. She is also a cancer charity founder, a record holder, and a circular economy advocate.
Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur smashed the record for the fastest single-handed circumnavigation of the globe 18 years ago. MacArthur, then 28, completed her 27,354-mile odyssey in 71 days, 14 ...
Record-breaking round-the-world yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur talks about her life, in order to inspire others to recognise their own passions and talents. Sub...
To Miss Ellen MacArthur, I am delighted to learn that you have completed your round-the-world journey in record time. Since you set sail last November your progress has been followed by many people in Britain and throughout the world, who have been impressed by your courage, skill and stamina.
In this video interview, the yachtswoman and foundation founder explains why a circular economy is better for the environment and business. She shares examples of how to design products for remanufacture, disassembly, and reuse, and how to create economic opportunities for emerging markets.
Ellen Macarthur, age 28, had circled the globe, sailing 27,000 miles in 71 days 14 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds. She'd shaved one-and-a-third days off the Frenchman's record.
Ellen MacArthur is famed as a round-the-world yachtswoman but having revisited her Scottish roots, she aims to make a difference for the whole planet • Dame Ellen MacArthur at Portree on Skye
Record yachtswoman ready to sail again. LES SABLES D'OLONNE, France -- Solo sailor Ellen MacArthur is planning her next adventure less than 24 hours after becoming the fastest woman to sail round ...
Outstanding Achievement Award Ellen MacArthur, yachtswoman, who at 28 years of age, sailed single handed round-the-world.
Yachtswoman sails to solo record. LES SABLES D'OLONNE, France -- British solo yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur has sailed home to a hero's welcome in the Vendee Globe round-the-world yacht race.
Ellen MacArthur solo long-distance yachtswoman. Ellen MacArthur was born July 8, 1976, in Whatstandwell, Derbyshire. At just 28, she set a world record for the fastest solo nonstop voyage around the world on her first attempt. On 7 February 2005, she completed a 27,000 mile voyage in 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes, beating Francis Joyon's ...
Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur DBE (born 8 July 1976) is a retired English sailor, from Whatstandwell near Matlock in Derbyshire, now based in Cowes, Isle of Wight.. MacArthur is a successful solo long-distance yachtswoman.On 7 February 2005, she broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe, a feat which gained her international renown.