Ellen MacArthur

Leadership Culture, Diversity, Getting on and Giving back Ellen MacArthur is everything that is good about the Heart of the Midlands

Ellen MacArthur

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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