Following her retirement from professional sailing on 2 September 2010, MacArthur announced the launch of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity that works with business and education to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
She once held the top spot on the UK Top Gear show for fastest star in a reasonably priced car.
MacArthur was born in Derbyshire[3] where she lived with her parents, who were both teachers, and two brothers Fergus, still in Whatstandwell, and Lewis, who now lives in Pennsylvania. She acquired her early interest in sailing, firstly by her desire to emulate her idol at the time, Sophie Burke,[4] and secondly by reading Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books. She has since become the Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust[5] which owns and operates Ransome's yacht, Nancy Blackett.
Her first experience of sailing was on a boat owned by her aunt Thea MacArthur on the east coast of England. She saved her school dinner money for three years to buy her first boat, an eight-foot dinghy, which she named Threp'ny Bit even though decimalisation had taken place before she was born.[6] She sellotaped a real 'threepenny bit' coin onto the bow.
MacArthur attended Wirksworth County Infants and Junior Schools and the Anthony Gell School and also worked at a sailing school in Hull.[citation needed] When she was 17, MacArthur bought a Corribee and named it Iduna; she described the first moment she saw it as "love at first sight".[citation needed] In 1995 she sailed Iduna single-handed on a circumnavigation of Great Britain.
In 1997, she finished 17th in the Mini Transat solo transatlantic race after fitting out her 21ft (6.4m) Classe Mini yacht Le Poisson herself while living in a French boatyard.
MacArthur first came to general prominence in 2001 when she finished second in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world sailing race in her Owen Clarke/Rob Humphreys designed Kingfisher (named after her sponsors, Kingfisher plc), and subsequently MacArthur was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to sport. At 24, she was the youngest competitor to complete the voyage.[8]
In 2003, she captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht in Kingfisher 2 (a catamaran formerly owned by Bruno Peyron and known as Orange), but was thwarted by a broken mast in the Southern Ocean.
Ellen MacArthur on her arrival in 2005
A trimaran named B&Q/Castorama (after two companies in the Kingfisher group) unveiled in January 2004, was specially designed by Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret for her to break solo records. The 75-foot (23m) trimaran was built in Australia, with many of the components specifically arranged to take into account MacArthur's 5-foot 2inch (1.57 m) height. [original research?]
Using the yacht, her first significant record attempt in 2004 to break the west–east transatlantic crossing time failed by around one and a quarter hours, after over seven days of sailing.
She began her attempt to break the solo record for sailing non-stop around the world on 28 November 2004. 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 7 February 2005 beating the previous record set by French sailor Francis Joyon by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes, 49 seconds. Her time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds is world record for the 27,354 nautical miles (50,660km) covered. This is an average speed of 15.9 knots (29.4km/h).
On 8 February 2005, following her return to England, it was announced that she was to be made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to sailing.[9] She was the youngest person to ever receive this honour at the age of 28.[10] Coming immediately after the event being recognised, rather than appearing in due course in the New Year's or Birthday Honours lists, this recognition was reminiscent of accolades previously bestowed upon Francis Drake and Francis Chichester when reaching home shores after their respective circumnavigations in 1580 and 1967. MacArthur was also granted the rank of HonoraryLieutenant Commander, Royal Naval Reserve on the same day.
In recognition of her achievement she was appointed a Knight (Chevalier) of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy in March 2008. She is a fluent French speaker.[11]
In 2007 MacArthur headed up BT Team Ellen, a three-person sailing team which includes Australian Nick Moloney and Frenchman Sébastien Josse.[12]
In October 2009 MacArthur announced her intention to retire from competitive racing to concentrate on the subject of resource and energy use in the global economy.[13]
Sailing records
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 woman monohull east-to-west passage, and also the record for a single-handed woman in any vessel.[14]
MacArthur's second place in the 2000–2001 edition of the Vendée Globe, with a time of 94 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes, was the world record for a single-handed, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman.[15] The record stood for 20 years until Clarisse Crémer beat it in 2020-2021 edition of the Vendée Globe.[16]
In June 2004, MacArthur 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. This set a new world record for a transatlantic crossing by women, beating the previous crewed record as well as the singlehanded version.[17]
In 2005, MacArthur beat Francis Joyon's existing world record for a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation. MacArthur in the trimaran B&Q/Castorama sailed 27,354 nautical miles (50,660km) at an average speed of 15.9 knots.[18] Her time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds beat Joyon's then world record time by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds. She had no more than 20 minutes' sleep at a time during the voyage, having to be on constant lookout day and night. On 23 November 2007 Joyon set off in IDEC 2 in an attempt to beat MacArthur's current world record for a single handed circumnavigation. He achieved his goal in 57 days, 13 hours 34 minutes and 6 seconds.[2] Despite Joyon's reclamation of the record, Robin Knox-Johnston still described MacArthur's time as an "amazing achievement".[19]
Her boat, now named USE IT AGAIN is skippered by French professional sailor, Romain Pilliard.[20][21]
MacArthur was also the last record holder on Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car on the BBC's Top Gear television driving programme until the eighth series, when the car and rules were changed, and previous records were removed.[23] The competition was a timed lap of a racetrack in a Suzuki Liana. She completed the lap in 1 minute 46.7 seconds, beating Jimmy Carr by 0.2 seconds. MacArthur won Top Gear's Fastest Driver of the Year award in 2005.
In 2002, MacArthur released her first autobiography entitled Taking on the World. Later she wrote Race Against Time, published in 2005, a day-by-day account of her record journey around the world. In September 2010, she published a second autobiography entitled Full Circle.
In 2003, MacArthur set up the Ellen MacArthur Trust (now the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust), a registered charity, to 8 to 24 year olds sailing to help them regain their confidence whilst recovering from cancer, leukaemia and other serious illnesses.[24]
In 2008 MacArthur joined other sports celebrities to raise £4 million for the Rainbows children's hospice. The aim is to give terminally ill young people their own customised sleeping unit to enable children in separate age groups to have their families stay with them.[25]
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
A 2011 Ellen MacArthur Foundation video essay explaining the circular economy concept
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) is a UK registered charity[26] which promotes the circular economy. It does this by developing and promoting the concept of a circular economy, working with business, policy makers and academics.
History
Founded on 23 June 2009, the foundation was publicly launched on 2 September 2010 by MacArthur at the Science Museum.[27] The charity was inspired by MacArthur's sailing experiences.[27][28]
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a founding member and partner of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which was launched out of the World Economic Forum.[31][32]
Related Research Articles
A trimaran is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls which are attached to the main hull with lateral beams. Most modern trimarans are sailing yachts designed for recreation or racing; others are ferries or warships. They originated from the traditional double-outrigger hulls of the Austronesian cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia; particularly in the Philippines and Eastern Indonesia, where it remains the dominant hull design of traditional fishing boats. Double-outriggers are derived from the older catamaran and single-outrigger boat designs.
The Jules Verne Trophy is a prize for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by any type of yacht with no restrictions on the size of the crew provided the vessel has registered with the organization and paid an entry fee. A vessel holding the Jules Verne trophy will not necessarily hold the absolute round the world record. The trophy was first awarded to the first yacht which sailed around the world in less than 80 days. The name of the award is a reference to the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days in which Phileas Fogg traverses the planet in 80 days. The current holder is IDEC Sport skippered by Francis Joyon in 40 days 23 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds.
Francis Joyon is a French professional sailboat racer and yachtsman. Joyon and his crew currently hold the Jules Verne Trophy for circumnavigation, on IDEC SPORT, nearly five days less than the previous reference time. He held the record for the fastest single-handed sailing circumnavigation from 2008 to 2016.
The Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (STAR) is an east-to-west yacht race across the North Atlantic. When inaugurated in 1960, it was the first single-handed ocean yacht race; it is run from Plymouth in England to Newport, Rhode Island in the United States, and has generally been held on a four yearly basis.
The sport and practice of single-handed sailing or solo sailing is sailing with only one crewmember. The term usually refers to ocean and long-distance sailing and is used in competitive sailing and among cruisers.
The clipper route was derived from the Brouwer Route and was sailed by clipper ships between Europe and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. The route, devised by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer in 1611, reduced the time of a voyage between The Netherlands and Java, in the Dutch East Indies, from almost 12 months to about six months, compared to the previous Arab and Portuguese monsoon route.
Denise "Dee" Caffari MBE is a British sailor, and in 2006 became the first woman to sail single-handedly and non-stop around the world "the wrong way"; westward against the prevailing winds and currents. In February 2009, Caffari completed the Vendée Globe race and set a new record to become the first woman to sail solo, non-stop, around the world in both directions.
Alex Thomson is a British yachtsman.
Speed sailing records are sanctioned, since 1972, by the World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC). Records are measured either by average speed over a specified distance or by total distance traveled during a specified time interval. The three most sought after records are the:
IDEC SPORT is a racing sailing trimaran designed for transoceanic record-setting. She is one of the world's fastest ocean-going sailing vessels and the current holder of the Jules Verne Trophy for circumnavigation of the world. She was originally skippered by French yachtsman Franck Cammas, with a crew of ten and sponsored by the French insurance company Groupama. She is currently skippered by Françis Joyon.
Banque Populaire V, is an offshore-racing trimaran which was originally run by Team Banque Populaire. It was Team Banque Populaire's fifth boat designed to set oceanic records. She was launched on 4 October 2008 in Nantes, France. She holds multiple records for sailing over set courses, as well as the record for distance sailed in 24 hours by any class of sailing boat, 908.2 nm.
Geronimo is a French trimaran designed to break great offshore records. It was skippered by the French yachtsman Olivier de Kersauson. It was launched on Saturday 29 September 2001 in Brest, France by Marie Tabarly. In January 2003, skipper Kersauson said that the Geronimo was attacked by a giant squid during an attempt to win the Jules Verne Trophy.
The first around the world sailing record for circumnavigation of the world can be attributed to the surviving crew of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, including the last captain Juan Sebastián Elcano who completed their journey in 1522.
IDEC 2 is an ocean racing trimaran skippered by Francis Joyon and sponsored by groupe IDEC. She is currently named Qingdao China.
Loïck Peyron is a French yachtsman, younger brother of the yachtsman Bruno Peyron.
Thomas Coville is a French yacht racer.
François Gabart is a French professional offshore yacht racer who won the 2012-13 Vendée Globe in 78 days 2 hours 16 minutes, setting a new race record. In 2017 he set the speed record for sailing around the globe, in 42 days 16 hours 40 minutes and 35 seconds, finishing on 17 December. He was sailing solo in the 30 metre Trimaran Macif.
Alex Pella is a Spanish yachtsman. In 2014 he became the first Spaniard to win a transoceanic single-handed race, the Route du Rhum. Alex Pella made history once again, on 26 January 2017, when he broke, with the rest of the team, the absolute round-the-world speed sailing record, known as the Jules Verne Trophy, aboard the sophisticated maxi-multihull IDEC 3. They circumnavigated the planet in 40 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds.
Dídac Costa is a yachtsman who competes in ocean racing. He was the first Catalan and the second Spanish yachtsman to finish the Vendée Globe, the non-stop solo round-the-world sailing world race. He was the first Spanish yachtsman to complete the two IMOCA 60 class round-the-world yacht races: solo in the 2016–2017 Vendée Globe and double-handed at the Barcelona World Race 2014–15. He is the protagonist of the feature documentary Open Ocean (2021), which chronicles his 2016-17 and 2020-21 Vendée Globe campaigns.
References
↑ Our Amazing Planet Staff (30 April 2012). "8 Unsung Women Explorers". LiveScience.com. Retrieved 30 April 2012.
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