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Imagine
spending months alone, seeing nothing but ocean for days
at a time, sleeping in 20-minute increments and hauling
equipment which weighs more than several times your body
weight. This is the life and passion of the UK's Ellen
Macarthur.
Ellen
Macarthur
Ellen
grew up in Derbyshire, a town located near the middle of
England and about as far away from water as you could
get. Her passion for sailing developed out of a boating
trip with her aunt when she was eight years old. She
quickly developing into a sailing book-worm spending
hours in the library reading everything she could get
her hands on about the sport. She even camped out in her
garage so that she had more space in her room for
sailing charts. At 10 she came last in sailing races at
her school and as she told a BBC reporter, "On the
journey home I decided that I would never let this
happen again…I wasn't going to be last no matter what
it took."
She spent three years saving her lunch money and with
help from her grandmother finally bought her first boat
– an 8-foot dinghy. At 18 she sailed single-handedly
around Britain and won the Young Sailor of the Year
award, passing her Yachtmaster Offshore Qualification
with the highest possible marks in both the theory and
practical examinations. Yet even with these
achievements, she had a tough time finding sponsors. Of
the 2,500 letters she mailed out, Ellen received only
two replies. Undeterred and nearly broke she bought a
one-way ferry ticket to France in 1997 where she
purchased a 21-foot yacht. She then camped out next to
the boat while she worked on its mast and hull. With her
new vessel she entered into the Mini-Transat solo race
across the Atlantic Ocean which she completed in 33
days, good for 17th place. Her impressive performance
finally brought her a "trial" with a major
sponsor and she was soon taking the sailing world by
storm winning her class and finishing 5th overall in the
grueling Route du Rhum – a race which help win her the
title of Yachtsman of the Year.
Impressed by her hard work and dogged determination,
Kingfisher (a huge home improvement retailer in Europe),
backed her with 2 million ₤ (about 4.65 million
dollars Canadian or 3.5 million US) to enter the world
renowned Vendee Global – a three month solo journey
around the world. Many in the sailing community
predicted that at only 5'2", Ellen wouldn't stand a
chance against her muscular, male opponents. It was a
tough challenge. Alone on the water the 24-year-old
needed to be able to make repairs, dodge storms,
iceburgs and fatigue all while keeping on course and
staying ahead of competitors with years more experience.
She spent weeks at a time in her survival suit, eating
freeze-dried food and working the sails with hands
covered in salt sores and cuts. At one point she had to
shimmy up at 90-foot mast in a storm, spent 18 hours
gluing a sail back together and had to replace a broken
daggerboard, a piece of the boat twice her height and
1.5 times her body weight, all while the waves slammed
into her boat.
Beating the odds and all but one of the men in the
field, Ellen made headlines around the world, coming in
second. She also broke records.
WW - The first female competitor ever to lead the race
WW - The youngest solo sailor to ever finish
WW - The fastest women to circumnavigate the globe.
At a press conference the winner, Michel Desjoyeaux,
told reporters: "Ellen for me is a great
mystery…she is ten years younger than me and could
have beaten me. She had displayed a great deal of
courage and determination and has threatened me right
until the end." When she sailed into the small
French harbor of Les Sables d'Olonne after 94 days on
the ocean, 200,000 fans were there to greet her
---double the crowd that had waited for the winner.
Since her dramatic finish, Ellen has gone on to
victories and amazing adventures and has also written a
book and released a film featuring footage that she took
during the Vendee race. In 2004, she plans to make
attempts at breaking several more solo-records.
Superb
signed Limited Edition Print now available - click
picture for details
Notes on Ellen:
Role model and inspirations:
Ellen counts her grandmother as a huge inspiration. As a
young woman her grandmother had a passion for study and
even won a scholarship to university, but with money
tight in the family, her father forced her to turn it
down and go to work. 63 years later, she went back to
school – and graduated at the age of 82.
After the Vendée Globe race, Ellen was offered several
honorary degrees and accepted only one --- from Derby
University, the school from which her grandmother
graduated.
Quotes from Ellen during Vendee:
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/UK/02/08/sailing.macarthur.quotes/
On Sleep – or lack thereof…
To help her manage her sleep efficiently, Ellen worked
with a chronobiologist, Claudio Stampi who helped train
her to sleep in short naps to avoid fatigue. Dr. Stampi
is a world expert on sleep strategy for sailors. He's
carefully studied Ellen's sleep patterns and worked with
her on how to maximize her performance at sea. During
one of her races she even wore a special sleep
microcomputer worn on the wrist, enabling him to monitor
Ellen's sleep data via satellite link.
Read an article by Dr. Stampi on Sleep Deprivation and
solo sailors
http://4therapy.healthology.com/focus_article.asp?f=sleep_disorders&b=4therapy&c=sleepdeprivation
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