A few years ago I spent a week on a small sailing yacht off England’s South Coast, training for a sailing examination which, I am proud to say, I passed. I subsequently enjoyed plenty of good times afloat, even including a gruelling but fun trip across to France and back, sailing across some of the busiest shipping lanes at night. Assuming I am not flat broke after completing my current house move (gulp), this is a hobby I intend to seriously pursue.
What anyone who has taken part in this great activity will tell you is how tough sailing can be on the human body if you have been sailing in rough weather for any length of time. After one particularly tough week, I felt more physically drained than at any time I can recall. Which makes me awestruck at the achievement today of 28-year-old Ellen MacArthur, who has just set the world record for fastest single-handed non-stop trip around the world.
Her vessel is a huge trimaran, fitted with rope winches the size of small barrels, the latest satellite navigation technology, a mast more than 100 feet tall and made of super-light material. These modern vessels are incredibly fast although they lack some of the rapier-sharp elegance of an America’s Cup 12-metre.
Will it be possible to squeeze even further speed gains from modern yachts? Is there a limit to how fast these modern boats can go? I don’t know, but I guess this amazing Derbyshire lass is going to have a lot of fun trying to find out. (Maybe she should team up with Bert Rutan).
And this being a libertarian blog, I ought to mention that of course, Miss MacArthur seems blissfully unaware that her behaviour demonstrates the sort of risk-embracing attitude increasingly frowned upon in today’s nanny state Britain, as this article makes clear.
But now is not the time to draw great cultural insights from what has happened. Instead, I am going to raise a glass to someone who has shown enormous courage, tenacity and flair.
Update: A commenter asked what my sailing qualifications are and where I got them. I am a Day Skipper, trained by this excellent sea school in Portsmouth and I recommend them. I intend to follow this course with what is called a “Coastal Skipper” course and eventually, a “Yachtmaster”, giving me the ability to sail across the ocean. Modern insurance and growing state regulations require you to have at least one person skippering a boat with proper qualifications. Alas the pastime is getting more closely regulated with time.
Oh, and for those that wonder what is the “point” of Ellen MacArthur’s trip, my reply is simple: it is the thrill of demonstrating human efficacy and daring against heavy odds. I celebrate it as much as I celebrate Messner’s climb of Everest without artificial oxygen or Rutan’s space flight feats last year.
I may only have a coffee to hand, but I’ll drink to that!
There is also this woman:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6819833/
You can track her journey here:
http://www.maudfontenoy.fr/
She’s already rowed across the Atlantic.
What’s with the miserable git Yorkshire and Scotish posters as Sky News’ Have Your Say Not an achievement, didn’t get anywhere, waste of money, should be spent on something unspecified that’s “useful”. Bunch on miseries and long may they remain so.
I think it’s an awesome achievement.
Excellent news, and congratulations.
I’ve just been told that this year, I’m unqualified to supervise children on a keelboat in inland waters – something I’ve been doing every year for the past 14 years. Now, I need to have more paperwork. Assuming Johnathan Pearce was doing his RYA Coastal Skipper (or perhaps Day Skipper), maybe he can recommend a place to get this bit of paper.
As for people doing dangerous things – just wait till this solo non-stop circumnavigation finishes:
http://www.earthtrekuk.net/Intro.htm
And he’s not exactly got big money behind him, either.
Whenever I see the footage of Ellen MacArthur, in what must obviously be a state of exhaustion, I cannot but help think of the brilliant takeoff done about her on Dead Ringers.
I wonder if anyone has thought of doing a round-the-world solo competition done without the benefit of satnav, computer-assisted steering or robomechanical sail control – i.e. how Francis Chichester did it.
Rather than Julian’s ‘Trad Worrld Circ’, I would like to see how well the satnav and servo kit would do without the meat. Lets see how fast an unmanned boat can circumnavigate the globe
I’d hesitate to say she what she did was courageous. Courage to me is demonstrated by being forced into doing something you don’t really want to have to do, normally for the sake of something else or someone other than yourself. Sailing a yacht around the world alone is dangerous, and it is a risk, but it is not a measure of bravery.
Tim, I just cannot agree with you. Courage also applies as a virtue even if you are choosing a course of action. It does not just apply to dire emergencies.
I am sure you were not trying to cut down the scale of this woman’s achievement. I have come across a lot of nit-picking carping out there in the press today, usually written by journalists who haven’t the skill or guts to do anything remotely like what she has done. It is tiresomely predictable, and all too characteristic of the cynical, pampered age in which many of us live.
Yes, Jon but does it really deserve the first 15 minutes of the BBC news? I mean come on? They pre-empted an agreement between Sharon & the PA to wax poetic about her.
It an impressive achievement, helped with lots of modern technology. Personally the round the world airplane speed records and the near-space tourism is far more important than this. Both will have profound affects on the way we travel; while one woman going solo round the planet in a high-tech sailboat probably will not have much.
Tim,
“I’d hesitate to say she what she did was courageous”
wtf?
Have you ever in your life been sailing on an ocean? I assume not.
Have you ever even seen PICTURES of what the sea’s like below 50 degrees South? I assume not.
I suggest politely that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Andrew, 15 minutes may have been a bit excessive, but from what I could see of the news on the BBC, Sky, and much else yesterday and today, it is a bit hard to claim that the woman has blanked out other breaking news stories. The world does not always revolve around the Middle East (thank god).
As for whether her feat is as important as space tourism, then I’d probably say not. I was not trying to compare her feat with that of Rutan’s, for instance. As for the stuff about being helped by technology, well up to a point. I don’t care how much tech. a boat has – if you are sailing in the Roaring 40s in a force 8 gale, the best GPS gizmos in the world won’t save your ass!!
It is an interesting point, though, to wonder about the potential cross-over benefits of sailing and aviation-related technologies. Sir Thomas Sopwith, the famous aircraft designer, also designed a lot of sailboats.
How about some love for Gavin Henson while you’re at it?
James
Having had the ‘pleasure’ of sitting amongst 70,000 celebrating Taffs on Saturday, I can say with all sincerety that you can stick Gavin Henson where the sun don’t shine. It was a great kick, one worthy of winning any game. You can still stick him where the sun don’t shine though. He should slide in easily, I hear he shaves his legs. A Welsh rugby player who shaves his legs. A sign o’ the times indeed.
The one saving grace was that the natives were in a rather jolly mood in Cardiff on Saturday night and a cracking time was had by all. However, what the hell is this all about? As if there weren’t enough missed tackles on the pitch.
Yes, what she did was an incredible and impressive achievement, brave, dangerous, exciting, exhausting, exhilarating etc., but what does it do? What was the point? She should of course be congratulated for her success and her achievement, but it doesn’t add anything sugnificant to human progress. Not that every action we make has to have a functional value, but I just cannot understand why such a fuss. And to be made a Dame for it? It is all a bit self-indulgent.
Clearly she is a bit of a loner as all she seems to do is sail around the world every few months.
Jon asks, “what was the point?”
The point is a sense of accomplishment at breaking a record, of pushing the envelope, as they say in the aviation business. Whenever someone asks what is the “point” of a record-breaking attempt, I tend to think that the “point” is the simple pleasure of achievement.
There is more to life than living according to some utilitarian calculus.
Johnathan, do you know if she was solely funded by private funds? I would be interested to know and yes it makes a difference to me.
Possible peace between Israel and Palistinians or one woman sailing round the world very quickly…wonder which is more important?
I just don’t see why everyone is so excited about it.
The answer to your question, Andrew, is no. So I guess she has not been tainted by the evil of taxpayers’ funds. You can sleep easy.
What riles me is all the “Hero” nonsense the media keep throwing at me.
Not to take away from Ellen’s achievement, but there is nothing heroic about what she did. The traditional term would be “adventurer,” and saying that would be fair enough, but placing her on some neo-Imperial pedestal cheapens the entire concept of heroism, IMO.
Item #1: There doesn’t have to be a “point” to doing anything. “Just because” is a perfectly good reason.
Item #2: Never mind all the electronic doodads and surveillance which helped MacArthur. Electronics fail, assistance sometimes is late in arriving. Her life was in danger almost the entire voyage.
Item #3: Another Pal-Israeli agreement signed. Ho-hum. When one of these “agreements” actually WORKS, then that would merit inclusion in the news.
Sean, I think the lady would be perfectly happy to be known as an adventurer rather than a hero. She seems a fairly modest sort of person, which adds to her appeal.
An old piece, but I had to weigh in on it…
I’m in the camp that admires Ms MacArthur’s achievement. And I have no bones about calling her a hero (after all, one of the meanings of the term is someone who excels in a particular endeavor).
Item #2: Never mind all the electronic doodads and surveillance which helped MacArthur. Electronics fail, assistance sometimes is late in arriving. Her life was in danger almost the entire voyage.
Particularly when you take into account the fact that her course took in the entire Southern Ocean – whose storms, unlike those of the Atlantic and Pacific, can circle Antarctica, strengthening themselves by feedback.