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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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Ellen MacArthur

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Outstanding Achievement Award Ellen MacArthur, yachtswoman, who at 28 years of age, sailed single handed round-the-world.

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.

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Record Breaking Yachtswoman

Dame Ellen MacArthur is a Record-Breaking Yachtswoman.

Dame Ellen’s fascination with sailing started at just 4 when she began sailing with her aunt.

While at school, Ellen started saving her dinner money to hopefully one day buy a boat. At 13, she purchased her first boat/dinghy, ‘ Threepenny Bit ‘.

At the exceptionally young age of 18, Ellen achieved her RYA Yachtmaster and Instructor’s Ticket.

Ellen’s record-breaking career soon followed when she single-handedly sailed around Britain in her ‘ Iduna’ boat. This achievement earned her the BT/JYA Young Sailor of the Year title.

Despite such promise, Ellen found it hard to attract sponsorship to take her career to the next stage. Out of 2,500 letters to potential sponsors, she received just two replies.

Eventually, Ellen raised enough money to buy a used 21ft Classe Mini.

She refitted the boat and raced it solo across the Atlantic in the 1997 Mini Transat Race , completing the 2,700-mile journey in 33 days.

This achievement brought sponsorship from the retail group Kingfisher. This funded her move to an Open 50 yacht, which she entered in the gruelling 1998 Route Du Rhum Race .

Ellen’s strong effort saw her finish first in her class and fifth overall. This led to her being named BT/JYA Yachtsman of the Year in the UK and Sailing’s Young Hope in France.

As a result, Kingfisher backed Ellen to the tune of £2 million to enter the 2000/01 Vendee Globe with a brand new Open 60 boat named ‘ Kingfisher ‘.

Those who had predicted that the 5ft slip of a girl would struggle against muscular male opponents were silenced as Ellen finished the challenge ahead of all of her male counterparts, bar one – making Ellen the fastest female and youngest sailor to race around the world solo, nonstop .

Dame Ellen MacArthur – Sailing Legend

Her achievements as a record-breaking yachtswoman led to being nominated in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2001.

In November 2002, she tackled the gruelling Route du Rhum again, finishing first and breaking several records. She was the first woman to sail to victory in the race and captained the first monohull to cross the line, smashing the course record.

In 2003, she captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht in ‘ Kingfisher 2 ‘. Unfortunately, she had a setback by a broken mast in the Southern Ocean, 2000 miles from the coast of Australia.

In January 2004, her new yacht, ‘ B&Q/Castorama ‘ was unveiled. Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret designed this superyacht to help Ellen break solo records. The 75-foot trimaran was built in Australia, with many of the components specifically arranged to consider MacArthur’s 5’2” height.

In June 2004, Ellen sailed the ‘B&Q/Castorama’ from New York Bay to Lizard Point, Cornwall, in 7 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes, 57 seconds.

This set a new world record for a transatlantic crossing by women. Remarkably, Ellen beat the previous crewed record and the single-handed version.

Sailing Non-Stop Around The World

On 28th November 2004, Ellen began her attempt to break the solo record for sailing non-stop around the world.

During her circumnavigation, she 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. She crossed the finishing line near the French coast at Ushant at 22:29 UTC on February 7th, 2005, beating the previous record set by French sailor Francis Joyon by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes, and 49 seconds.

On her return to England on February 8th, 2005, it was announced that she was to be made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her achievement, becoming, it is believed, the youngest-ever recipient of this honour.

Dame Ellen MacArthur Motivational Speaker

Known for her steely ambition, professionalism and unfaltering determination to succeed, Ellen’s story is not just about sailing but one of human endeavour. Her innovative thinking, goals, and success in overcoming countless challenges inspire audiences to make their innermost dreams come true!

Delivered as a fireside chat, Dame Ellen MacArthur inspires, motivates, breaks down barriers and encourages the audience to achieve their goals with her stories of living the dream, overcoming incredible difficulties, digging deep into her emotional reserves, and finally achieving the impossible.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circular Economy

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was established in 2010 to accelerate the transition to the circular economy.

Since its creation, the charity has emerged as a global thought leader. As a result, they have established the circular economy on the agenda of decision-makers across business, government, and academia.

For more info on Ellen MacArthur (Dame), email us or speak with an agent on 01275 463222

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Ellen MacArthur

Ellen and Falmouth Choosing Falmouth as the port to leave from and return to, Ellen broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe, a feat which gained her international renown. On 7th Feb Feb 2007 she completed the challenge in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds

Her record breaking achievements: In June 2000, MacArthur sailed the monohull Kingfisher from Plymouth, UK to Newport, Rhode Island, USA in 14 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes. This is the current record for a single-handed monohull east-to-west passage, and also the record for a single-handed woman in any vessel Her time 94 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes in the Vendee Globe is the world record for a single-handed, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman Ellen set a new world record in June 2004, when she sailed her trimaran B&Q/Castorama from Ambrose Light, Lower New York Bay, USA to Lizard Point, Cornwall, UK in 7 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes.

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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.

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.

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.

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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Dame Ellen MacArthur

Dame Ellen MacArthur was born in Derbyshire in 1976. She is a successful solo long-distance yachtswoman, hitting the headlines for the first time in 2001 when she single-handedly raced non-stop around the world in the Vendée Globe at the age of twenty-four. She has also won the solo transatlantic race from the UK to the USA as well as the Route du Rhum from France to the Caribbean in 2002. S he broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe in 2005, a feat which gained her international renown. Later that year she was also was knighted by the Queen and in 2008 she received the Legion d'Honneur from President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. MacArthur is the founder of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation whose mission is to accelerate progress towards a circular economy.

Twitter: @ellenmacarthur Website: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/

Books in order of publication :

Taking on the World (2002).

Race Against Time (2005).

Full Circle: My Life and Journey (2011).

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On this day in 2005: Dame Ellen MacArthur sets new round-world sailing record

The 28-year-old briton completed her 27,354-mile journey in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds, article bookmarked.

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Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur smashed the record for the fastest single-handed circumnavigation of the globe on this day in 2005.

MacArthur, then 28, completed her 27,354-mile odyssey in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds.

With an average speed on the water of 15.9 knots, the Briton 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.”

The yachtswoman was congratulated by the Queen and Prime Minister Tony Blair following her achievement.

The Queen said: “Your progress has been followed by many people in Britain and throughout the world, who have been impressed by your courage, skill and stamina.”

She described it as a “remarkable and historic achievement”.

MacArthur, originally from Derbyshire , was given a Damehood soon after 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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