MacArthur, Dame Ellen

Dame Ellen MacArthur, original name Ellen Patricia MacArthur, (born July 8, 1976, Whatstandwell, Derbyshire, England), English yachtswoman who in 2005 set a world record for the fastest solo nonstop voyage around the world on her first attempt.

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 a 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.

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. 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). 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.

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).