Dame Ellen MacArthur

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand nine.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is the yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur.

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At just twenty eight she became the fastest person to sail solo round the world.

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With her limitless passion for the sea and iron will to triumph, she's been called the first true heroine of the twenty first century yet her upbringing and approach seems to hark back to a much more old fashioned time. As a girl she pored over the pages of Swallows and Amazons, and skipped school lunches, saving her pennies to buy a little dinghy.

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Of sailing alone for the first time as a child, she says

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I felt a mixture of freedom, responsibility, and respect for the water.

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Feelings which remain unchanged to day. Ellen, it was two thousand five then when you became the fastest person to sail solo nonstop around the globe. What was the moment that you realized that land wasn't far off?

Dame Ellen MacArthur1:20

The thing that really hit me was the smell of the land.

Dame Ellen MacArthur1:23

The smell of land was something I hadn't smelt for two and a half months, and it was so strong. It was really strong, really um definitely plants, you could smell plants, but it was it was the earth, actually, I think. You could actually smell the earth.

Presenter1:37

When you're alone for those final closing hours and minutes.

Presenter1:43

When you knew that you'd got it, did you allow yourself, as you were alone, a little personal moment of triumph?

Dame Ellen MacArthur1:49

It's funny there was nothing like that.

Dame Ellen MacArthur1:51

Absolutely nothing. I was focused on the finish line, and really, because the finish line is near the rocks, until you cross it, until it's actually physically crossed, things can still go wrong. And when I crossed that line, that first feeling I had was just one of pure relief that I could actually, for the first time in two and a half months, switch my brain off. You can never ever relax for that whole time you're at sea. And then when you cross the line, it's over. It's just over.

Presenter2:14

And of course it's a solo effort and yet a team effort too. I mean the moment you shared it with your team then, was that when you got back on land?

Dame Ellen MacArthur2:22

I was on my own in the dark with nothing around me at all other than one little boat came out with a TV camera. I had no idea it was live CV at all. Then, about 20 minutes later, another boat came out, and it was a little tiny boat. It was pitch black. I could just see this tiny little light coming out of the darkness with the team on board, and they're all in survival suits. The guys one by one scrambled up over the back of the boat. And to be able to just look someone in the eyes and hug someone and actually physically share it, that was so, so special. And that's when the pleasure came, that's when the feeling that we'd done it came because we'd done it together and alone, it just meant nothing.

Presenter2:56

Is it an odd thing to to recalibrate yourself, that sort of period of entry back into?

Presenter3:02

Normal society where people do things like boil a kettle and watch the telly.

Dame Ellen MacArthur3:06

There are some things that are strange. I remember coming back from the first round of the world of Vonde Globe, and the finish was just unbelievable. There were hundreds of thousands of people there. It was just the most extraordinary experience to go from being totally alone to having lots of people there. And I remember going up this pontoon with hundreds of people on it. It was crammed, it was sinking. And I remember saying, I really need to go to the loo.

Dame Ellen MacArthur3:27

And I went into this porter cabin where the toilets were, and I remember so clearly sitting on a toilet seat, because you don't have a toilet on the boat, and actually sitting in this little room amongst this madness around this building, just sitting on the toilet seat, I remember that feels so different.

Presenter3:42

And does it feel I mean, not particularly sitting on the toilet seat, but does it feel good in being back on dry land?

Dame Ellen MacArthur3:48

The thing that's hard is the fact that the moment you step off that boat, you're in a world of madness. At that one time in your life when all you crave is normality, all you want to do is go home, eat some flapjack, have a cup of tea, sit down with mum and dad and talk about life.

Dame Ellen MacArthur4:03

It's not there.

Presenter4:05

Let's have some music. Tell me about your first track.

Dame Ellen MacArthur4:08

First track is Outcast, and this track's a team track because when we were preparing the boat Moby down in New Zealand and Australia, and it was really hard at the time because we were working seven days a week on the boat, on those late evenings when you're still on the boat, still trying to finish a job, you'd put this on and everyone would smile and it was really, really positive.

Speaker 24:29

Together, ooh, we get together. But separate sounds better when there's feelings involved.

Speaker 24:37

Oh, you put me says nothing is forever. Then what makes it, then what makes it, then what makes it, then what makes something what makes it love the extension. So why oh why oh, why oh why oh why oh I was a wind and I oh win we know we're not happy here Y'all don't wanna hear me, you just wanna dance

Presenter4:57

That was Outcast and hey, yeah, that was memories there for you, Ellen MacArthur, of getting the boat ready with the team. You called it Moby. This was a the Trimoran B and Q that you were getting ready for this uh record breaking voyage. Well, it turned out to be that. You were at sea then for seventy one days. Do you play music to get you through?

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:05

That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 15:05

Uh

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:14

I played music the first time around the world in the Vonde, but the second time I was so stressed and so tense the whole time that I actually couldn't listen to music because it was a distraction.

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:26

And with a boat flying through the water as fast as she was, you actually couldn't switch your brain off and you mustn't switch your brain off.

Presenter5:32

And what about y you are not just required, of course, to sail the boat, you are required to be a mechanic.

Presenter5:39

You're required to be a navigator, you're required at times to be your own doctor, you I mean

Presenter5:44

That is an incredible degree of multitasking.

Presenter5:47

Does it come easily to you?

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:49

I've always been someone who loves learning.

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:53

But also I've always been someone that's quite good at a lot of things, but not really brilliant at anything.

Dame Ellen MacArthur5:59

And I think that's a skill that's worked quite well in sailing because when you are on the boat, as you say, you have to manage this little world that is where you're living and you have to charge the batteries, you have to fix the engine, you have to make sure the sails aren't chafing, you have to check everything all the time, check yourself, make sure you're eating, all these different things. It's like a rotor that doesn't stop for seventy-one days.

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:20

What do you mean make sure you're eating?

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:22

I never felt hungry.

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:24

I didn't feel hungry because I was nervous all the time, and you eat because you have to.

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:28

What do you eat?

Presenter6:28

Eating what

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:29

You eat freeze dried food, which is a bit like pot noodles. So you literally boil a kettle. That's the only cooking facility you have, is a light kettle on the smallest camping gas stove known to man.

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:39

You have just a few gas cylinders, enough just to heat the water twice a day, and you boil the kettle, you pour in the water and you wait ten minutes, and it's fuel, literally it's fuel.

Presenter6:48

Is it true you've had so much freeze-dried food that you can't actually digest bread anymore?

Dame Ellen MacArthur6:51

Not properly, yeah, I've got an intolerance to it'cause I've eaten freeze dried for well well over ten years, for months and months at a time.

Presenter6:53

The

Presenter6:58

How long does it take till you start to sort of have the the normal appetites for what you know, a pint of beer or something to eat or watching a movie? You know, when do you begin to feel that you're in the same rhythm?

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:11

About three months, I reckon.

Presenter7:12

Right. Until he felt normal.

Presenter7:15

Are you difficult to be around, do you think, in those three months?

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:17

I don't think you're difficult to be around. You are full of adrenaline. You finished. There's an amazing feeling of achievement that you share with the team. For the first few weeks, you're just.

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:26

That adrenaline really does something to you. The hardest point is when that wears off.

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:31

And you're still in this cycle of

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:34

Having finished, and everyone wants a piece of you, and then that's the hardest part to deal with. That's really difficult.

Presenter7:40

Let's have some music, then. Tell me what's next.

Dame Ellen MacArthur7:43

The next track is my favorite track of all time, and it's Don Henley Boys of Summer, and I just love it. There's no reason other than I think it's a really powerful piece of music. It makes me feel happy and I find it quite inspirational.

Speaker 27:57

I never will forget those nights

Speaker 27:59

I wonder if it was a dream Remember how you made me crazy Remember how I made you scream And I don't understand what happened to our love

Speaker 28:13

Babe, I'm gonna get you back. I'm gonna show you what I'm made of. I can see your mouth keep shutting the s.

Presenter8:24

Don Henley and Boys of Summer. So, Ellen MacArthur, tell me about your dad. It sounds to me like you um have inherited his knack for for fixing things.

Dame Ellen MacArthur8:32

Uh Dad's always been someone who makes things, who fixes things himself, who grows his own veg, always having tools around, always having something going on. It was just fantastic, and I'm so grateful for my parents for bringing me up in that way because, as a family, we all lived in that way. Two brothers, a younger and an elder brother. And we'd make go-karts to go around the garden out of an old lawn mower, an Apco lawn mower, and put little wheels on the back of it. All sorts of things. It was just good fun.

Presenter8:47

That's using your

Speaker 18:47

That way.

Presenter8:59

I so it sounds like you weren't much of a girly girl. I mean, did you have a Cindy?

Dame Ellen MacArthur9:03

I didn't have a Cindy now. I was a bit of a tomboy. I loved animals. For me, being outside in the country with animals was what made me happy and I'd always have a knife in my pocket and I'd be whittling a bit of wood or making something. That was me.

Presenter9:05

You have done it.

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And what about your mum? What kind of mum was she when you were growing up?

Dame Ellen MacArthur9:17

She's just fantastic. She's very artistic, and I guess I've inherited some of that'cause I loved spending time painting with her. I used to do quite a lot of that as a as a kid. And mum is the most caring person you could ever imagine. Very special.

Presenter9:30

And what about the competitive spirit then? Were they the sort of parents who said to you Ellen, if you're going to do something, be the best at it?

Dame Ellen MacArthur9:37

Never.

Dame Ellen MacArthur9:38

They never said that. They never tried to change the path of what we did. They never ever tried to stop me. They never said don't do that. Not even when I sailed around Britain at 18 years old, having never sailed solo before in my life. They came and they saw me off and they wished me well. It's quite interesting in my life. My mum and dad both went to university. And my mum's mum, my nan, had always wanted to go to university. And she won a scholarship when she was very young. And her father forbade her from going because she came from a very poor family in Bradford. So she went out to work. She then got married, had three children, one of whom was my mum, one of whom was my aunty Thea, who taught me to sail when I was a kid.

Dame Ellen MacArthur10:14

And she made sure her three children went to university, but then when she retired, she came to Derbyshire and then she came to our school.

Dame Ellen MacArthur10:21

She went on the school bus in the morning with us and would sit in the canteen having lunch with us. And then she enrolled in a degree course at Derby University, and she had always wanted to achieve that for her whole life, and she managed that three months before she died she received a degree. She was a huge inspiration to me, although I didn't realise it at the time.

Presenter10:37

And why do you think sailing what was it about I mean, you were just a young girl when when sailing captured you, what was it at the time?

Presenter10:47

I loved about it.

Dame Ellen MacArthur10:47

I love

Dame Ellen MacArthur10:48

I first sailed when I was four, and I'll never forget rowing out in the little dinghy to go and climb on to this boat that was my Aunty Ther's boat. With my brother and my Nan we went down there for a week.

Dame Ellen MacArthur10:59

And I remember I looked down into this little cabin, and it was a tiny cabin.

Dame Ellen MacArthur11:03

But I remember seeing this little kitchen, this little chart table, these two little bunks, and I remember thinking this boat could take us anywhere in the world. It was just unbelievable. It was freedom, that's what I felt.

Presenter11:12

Let's have some music. What's the third track?

Dame Ellen MacArthur11:15

Next track is Phil Collins and I Wish It Would Rain Down and this reminds me so much of a school trip I went on when I was thirteen. We went on a coach to Paris for three days and I sat ne next to my friend Rosalind Lacons and she had the Phil Collins tape. Oh tape and we shared the Walkman and I think this was my favorite track on the whole tape, so it reminds me of that.

Speaker 111:27

Don't

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And we share the

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You know I never meant to see you again.

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But I hope

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We pass by

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Frank

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Yeah.

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All this time I stayed out of sight

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I started wondering why

Presenter12:01

Phil Collins and I Wish It Would Rain Down. Ellen MacArthur, we were talking there about your your grandmother, your nan, and you were saying that it was only later you realized she was an instrumental force in turning you into the person th that you became. Aside f from your nan, I mean it sounds to me almost as if you you lived a young life that would be more representative of a child in the nineteen thirties.

Dame Ellen MacArthur12:24

No, I grew up in the countryside and lots of other young people around me were growing up in exactly the same way. You know, they had dogs or animals or it wasn't a kind of city existence.

Presenter12:34

But but most of them would have had a bed in their bedroom. You had to move your bed out.

Dame Ellen MacArthur12:37

Now that was me being a bit different. I chose to move my bed. My I did have a bed, but my bedroom was tiny. You could put your arms out and touch both walls. And I didn't have enough space to make things or store sailing kit or whatever it might be. So when mum and dad went out one day, I dismantled the bed and put it in the barn.

Presenter12:41

Yeah.

Dame Ellen MacArthur12:53

And I thought if I do this all

Dame Ellen MacArthur12:55

And get rid of it before they come back, it'll be okay. And after that, for years I just slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

Presenter13:00

Because what what was taking up all the room? It was it was boating stuff.

Dame Ellen MacArthur13:04

Just things I'd made, or boating things, or I was always making things. I was always using my mum's old sewing machine to make things, and I made my first set of sailing trousers, uh which I've still got.

Presenter13:14

Tell me about when you started saving for your own boat.

Dame Ellen MacArthur13:17

I obviously grew up in the countryside and there wasn't really anywhere to go and work, and I didn't get pocket money as a kid, none of us did. So for me, if I was going to try and save money to buy a boat and we're talking about a little eight foot dinghy

Dame Ellen MacArthur13:29

I needed to get the money from somewhere, and the only income I had was school dinner money. So I would save all the school dinner money change that I possibly could. And that meant when I was at secondary school, I would have either no lunch. Or I would have mashed potato and baked beans every day, and mash was fourpence, beans was fourpence, and gravy was free, and I consumed an awful lot of gravy in the school. I would fill the plate to the meniscus. I think the dinner ladies thought I was mad, but the rest of the change that I saved would go into my pocket, and then when I got home, I would pile it on the top of my money box. And every time that pile of change got to a pound, I'd drop it in the money box and cross off one of the hundred squares I'd drawn on a piece of graph paper. And when I got to a hundred, I'd go to the Building Society and put it in.

Presenter14:08

How much did you need to save?

Dame Ellen MacArthur14:09

It was five hundred and thirty five pounds in the end that the boat cost.

Presenter14:12

Can you remember the day you handed over the cash? Tell me about it.

Dame Ellen MacArthur14:15

suddenly that dream had become a reality. And I remember going with mum and dad and seeing this little blue tiny little boat and feeling so excited that adventures could happen and

Dame Ellen MacArthur14:27

Before I knew it, it was there, it was in the garden. I'd put the mast in, got all the sails, and I was sitting there in my buoyancy aid in the garden with a little pet chicken sat on the boom. It was just amazing, really amazing. But the sea wasn't there, and what I realized then was, although I'd saved up for a boat, it cost money to put it on a reservoir, and I didn't have that money, so I just had to make do with playing in the garden until the week of every summer when we'd go sailing.

Presenter14:47

That obsessiveness is is undoubtedly something that you would have in common with any other great sporting achievers. It does separate you, though. It means you're not the same as you grow up. It means that you become the girl with the boat magazine. So w wa was that your identity as a teenager, do you think?

Dame Ellen MacArthur15:03

I don't necessarily think they'd think I was obsessive.

Dame Ellen MacArthur15:07

But I was the girl who was reading sailing books. You know, I'd go in the library at break times and lunch times and I'd read sailing books. I'd sit there with my back on the radiator in the winter and look at sailing books. I loved that.

Dame Ellen MacArthur15:17

I was just desperate to learn, I was just someone who was focused.

Presenter15:20

But didn't you take your sailing magazines to the pub and things when you went for a drink with

Dame Ellen MacArthur15:23

Yeah, I was pretty sad. Now I'm much more social and I love spending time with friends and and going for walks with friends or going out to the pub for a drink. I'm I I'm someone who likes being around people.

Presenter15:35

Let's have some music, what's next?

Dame Ellen MacArthur15:37

Next track is Manu Chow and it's a song which in 2001 after the Vonde Globe really cheered me up and it was a difficult year having just finished the Vonde. But I went to sail with a French team called Foncia and I did a lot of training on Trimerans which is what helped me make the decision to go solo non-stop round the world and in a way getting back on the water was the best thing that I could have done because it was where I felt safest, it's where I felt in control and they were an amazing team and this track was being played a lot that summer.

Speaker 116:10

Also there are lodges in El Salvador, El Salvador.

Presenter16:36

Manu Chow and Migustas too, I like you. It's interesting, Ellen MacArthur, that you've said, I think maybe more than once as I've been talking to you, that that out on the water is where you feel safest.

Dame Ellen MacArthur16:48

Yeah, I think the contrast with life

Dame Ellen MacArthur16:52

on the water where you control that little world, where you you kind of make all the decisions that are necessary for your survival. Although it's dangerous out there and you can't control the weather, you do control everything else.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:04

On the boat, you've got no newspapers, you've got no adverts, you've got no noise, you've got no radio, you don't even have a wallet or money, and they mean nothing out there because.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:13

What matters is managing what you have and making sure that what you have on the boat will get you to the end, and it's very, very different.

Presenter17:20

It's a it's a relatively moneyed pastime, of course, isn't it? I mean it's quite expensive to sail. As you were saying, you you got your wonderful little boat and there it was sitting in the garden because it costs money to keep it on a a reservoir. Um did you notice that difference when you started going to I don't know if you went to did you go to summer camps where people sailed or once you you started sort of joining in with other sailors of your age?

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:37

You started.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:40

When I started sailing I was really lucky.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:42

There's a reservoir close to where I lived, and you could go and sail the boats that were owned by the Derbyshire Education Committee for free.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:48

I was desperate to try and learn a bit more, so I managed to, for my birthday, get a five day sailing course on Rutland Reservoir. I didn't have my own boat like a lot of the kids, so I borrowed a boat from Rutland.

Dame Ellen MacArthur17:58

And I must have been maybe 11 years old. I was tiny at 11. I wasn't really heavy enough to sail the boat, and I spent more time swimming than I did sailing. And I was the only kid who was on that course who didn't have a wetsuit. So I was sailing in a tracksuit and a pack-a-mac. And I was cold, really cold, and frustrated that I couldn't keep the boat the right way up because it was so windy. And I was determined I made it through to the end of the week. And I learnt all I could. And there were some lovely people there who helped me and helped me dry my clothes on the radiators and things at night. But it taught me something. And I learnt from that. I said, I'm not going to come back and do this again. I'm going to make sure I'm properly equipped. Didn't ever occur to you just to.

Dame Ellen MacArthur18:34

Pack it in. I couldn't pack it in. It was my passion. It was what I spent all my time dreaming about. I loved the adventure of it. I absolutely loved it.

Presenter18:42

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Dame Ellen MacArthur18:44

Next Piece of Music is Thomas Newman, and it reminds me so much of the first time I watched the Vonde Globe documentary. And I sat in the edit studio and watched this whole story of the Vonde unfold. There were cameras that had filmed things that I didn't even know were there.

Dame Ellen MacArthur19:01

And one of those images was saying goodbye to my mum and my dad. There's a piece of footage where I say goodbye to them, you can see me with them and my dad kisses me on my forehead and I turn and walk away'cause I knew at that point I had to, I just had to go. And then they looked at each other.

Dame Ellen MacArthur19:16

And that look was so telling. It just said everything. And I just thought to myself in that moment how.

Dame Ellen MacArthur19:22

brutally selfish it is to sail solo around the world when you're achieving your dream, but you leave others at home who can do nothing. Even when things go wrong, there's nothing that they can do. And I thanked them so much and it hit home to me so hard in that moment that they just let me spread my wings and fly.

Presenter20:05

Thomas Newman and Any Other Name.

Presenter20:08

You described rather um

Presenter20:10

Poignantly there, Ellen McCarter, this moment that you you saw on film that you were unaware of as you embarked on this massive uh challenge.

Presenter20:19

Can your parents ever understand why you're making the choice to do what you do?

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:24

I think they knew I was following my heart, and that I had to do that.

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:28

I think they they understood that, but it must have been so hard for them.

Presenter20:33

Because, of course, in these races people do die.

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:35

The race before one guy didn't come home and I knew him.

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:38

He was an amazing person, a really nice, generous character, and

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:42

They didn't understand they don't really sail. They sailed for a week, a year, for a few years, but they neither of them are sailors. And I can't believe how they never, ever tried to say, Don't do it.

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:54

And I don't know how they did that. I don't know how as a parent you

Dame Ellen MacArthur20:58

Can let your child do that.

Presenter21:01

How did you do it then? How did you deal with that first huge race?

Presenter21:06

Were you able?

Presenter21:09

To somehow predict what was coming your way, or was every was each day as it came a new surprise, a new shock, a new challenge?

Dame Ellen MacArthur21:15

You take each day as it comes and it's it's even each hour. Because every hour's different. Every hour the weather changes. Every hour something different happens. But I loved it. I loved being out there. And I remember one moment when I sat back on the the satellite dome at the back and I just sat there watching the sunset. And you don't often see the sun in the southern ocean and when it's there it's so special. The air's so clear and the colours are so strong and I just sat there thinking, this is just the most amazing place to be in the world. I am so lucky to be here.

Presenter21:43

The highlights of our life, the special minutes, are somehow made more real, more special, by sharing them, especially with the people we love or people we've grown close to.

Dame Ellen MacArthur21:50

Hmm.

Presenter21:55

You're not in that circumstance. The the most special moments of your life in terms of your profession and your enormous achievements are things that you

Presenter22:04

Won't be able to share with anybody that that you know and love well.

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:07

But that's why I filmed it.

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:10

And it's quite a hard thing to do because the last thing you want to do in those moments where it is just going so wrong and

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:18

You've just spent eighteen hours fixing a sail, or twenty-four sailing slowly because you've just hit something and you've smashed the dagger board to pieces. All these things go wrong, and I made the decision when I left that I would film everything.

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:28

And that was for me was the way to share it with people. It was the way

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:32

To carry my family and my friends on a journey. It was precious because it was the only thing I could bring home.

Presenter22:40

Let's take a break for some music then. Tell me about track number six. Why have you chosen this?

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:44

Well Dido was another track that was used in the documentary after the Vonde Globe.

Dame Ellen MacArthur22:48

And there was a piece of footage of me sitting right on the bow of the boat, this tiny little figure, and the helicopter that was filming flew round the front of the boat and then up into the air with this massive, great big white sail. And you could just see the size of the boat. For me, it showed so much. It showed me on the little boat where I'd been for months and months, and that place that I had considered really my home, and it just summed it up.

Presenter23:19

I wanna call my friend

Presenter23:23

They might wake me from his dream

Presenter23:30

Uh

Speaker 223:30

And I can live this pain.

Speaker 223:35

Let's get it on, let's begin.

Presenter23:40

That was Dido, and here with me. So, Ellen MacArthur I was Dame, Ellen MacArthur, did you use the dame?

Dame Ellen MacArthur23:46

I just say call me Ellen.

Presenter23:49

When you're trying to get sponsorship to use the dame.

Dame Ellen MacArthur23:51

Not really, no. I just say call me Ellen.

Presenter23:54

What about amassing funds? I mean, even in the early days, to get yourself as far as the starting line how did you manage to cobble together money in the beginning?

Dame Ellen MacArthur24:05

Knowing that you need to find a sponsor to make that dream come true is a huge challenge. It's not something I'd come across before. After I'd sailed round Britain in this little boat I'd saved my school dinner money for, suddenly then the stakes were higher and I needed to find funding.

Presenter24:20

You wrote originally was it two and a half thousand letters?

Dame Ellen MacArthur24:24

Yeah, over 2,000. How many people were at work? Two replies. Just two. One was an offer of helping with some photographs.

Presenter24:25

How many

Presenter24:27

So

Dame Ellen MacArthur24:32

And the other person was saying Good on yo, good luck.

Presenter24:35

But no check. No check, no. And you said that your mother was uh is very artistic. You you paint you painted miniatures at one point, did you to raise

Dame Ellen MacArthur24:44

Well, I had no money and I'd moved to the South Coast on the little boat I'd sailed round Britain and she's twenty one feet long, but her cabin is only four foot high. She's lucky I'm so small. And I was living on her on the South Coast and I'd got no income. So I started painting these little miniatures about an inch square in tiny little frames you could get from boots. So I did paintings of the Beatty Global Challenge boats.

Presenter24:44

Well I hadn't

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:03

and try to sell them.

Presenter25:04

I was going to foolishly ask you what you painted. I should have known it. Um is there any room in your life, Ellen, for for relationships, proper sort of one to one relationships? Or is it still all about the sailing?

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:07

Yeah, boats.

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:17

It's a bit easier now.

Presenter25:18

The

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:19

I'm on land a little bit more. There always has been some time for that, but when you're away at sea for six months at a time, it's pretty challenging.

Presenter25:26

And if there's love, has it always got to be somebody who shares your passion for the sea?

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:31

Not necessarily. It's I love people. I love the simple things in life. I'm someone who just likes people who are real and honest and caring and like my mum and dad, I guess.

Presenter25:43

Now you've described the conditions under which you I mean, survive would seem to be the right word on board. You know, there's there's not a loo, there's a kettle, there's this tiny cabin. You sleep do you s is there a tiny bunk, a sort of suspended bunk you sleep in?

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:53

Sleep do you

Dame Ellen MacArthur25:56

Uh there was a bunk on one side of the boat, but you generally sleep outside. I had a massive, great, big bean bag with a net outside that water could literally flush right through, and I'd sit on the bean bag or lie on the bean bag with a little fleece blanket over me. Normally I was in my waterproof, so I didn't take my waterproofs off, and I'd just try and doze outside.

Presenter26:12

Given how basic those surroundings are, what's life like at home? I mean, have you built a lovely nest of luxury for yourself when you're on land?

Dame Ellen MacArthur26:18

Not that all no. I love animals, I love being around animals, so I've got animals at home and it's a very normal house.

Dame Ellen MacArthur26:26

It's got a slate floor, it's got wood everywhere, I like wood. Have you got a bed? Have a got got definitely got a bed, yeah. And I and I love the bed. And actually, when you first get in a bed after you come back from the around the world, you can take all your waterproofs off and you can have a bath, you have your proper first wash. Because you hadn't washed.

Presenter26:30

Have you got a bit?

Presenter26:32

Yeah.

Presenter26:37

Oh, tell me about that.

Presenter26:42

Washed in two and a half months.

Dame Ellen MacArthur26:43

Yeah.

Presenter26:44

Yeah.

Dame Ellen MacArthur26:44

Not really. You've got no bath, you've got no shower, so and all your water comes through a desalinator, so you don't use that for washing. You only wash when it rains. And then in the Southern Ocean, of course, it's freezing cold. If you're dry, you just stay in the same clothes. But then I guess there's no one to tell you that you smell, so you get away with it.

Presenter27:00

Let's have some music, what's next?

Dame Ellen MacArthur27:02

Next track is Spandau Ballet, and it's a song that I really love. It's very emotional and not one of the most cheery songs, but I just I just love listening to it.

Presenter27:16

Mother doesn't know where her love has gone.

Presenter27:23

She says it must be youth that keeps us feeling strong.

Presenter27:29

I see a face that's turned to wise

Presenter27:36

That was Spandau Valley and Through the Barricades. Ellen MacArthur, your fastest solo record was beaten. It was recaptured by the the Frenchman who had it before you. He was sailing on this occasion a bigger boat than you had sailed.

Speaker 127:50

You had it before you

Dame Ellen MacArthur27:55

Failed.

Presenter27:56

I can't imagine you want to let that one lie, do you? Giant?

Dame Ellen MacArthur27:59

Well, it's interesting. I I was there for the finish of his record and he sailed the most outstanding lap of the planet and he deserves that record to stand for a very long time, I believe.

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:09

And yes, there's a huge part of me inside that says go out and try and get that record back. And I know the team to put together, I know the boat to build, I know the designer to work with, but something stopped me doing that.

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:20

Do you know what?

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:22

The winter after the Round the World I went down to the Southern Ocean again.

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:27

And I went down to an island called South Georgia, and I spent two months down there, part of that was camping on an island, and for the first time I actually stopped.

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:36

And I realized something for the first time that really jarred inside me.

Dame Ellen MacArthur28:42

And that was the fact that when you sail around the world on a boat, you take with you the minimum of resources and you don't waste anything. You never leave a light on, you never leave a computer screen on. Everything is looked after. You only have what you have, and if it doesn't last till the end, you p you won't make it. And that could be your life, or it could be the fact that you simply don't break the record.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:00

And then whilst I was in South Georgia, I realized that on land we do not do the same thing. We don't see things as precious anymore. We take what we have for granted. You'd never do that on the boat. If you need some kitchen roll, you tear off a corner, not a whole square, because someone somewhere thought that perforated line is what everyone needs.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:16

And it jarred inside me, and it started to make me think, and I was looking at plans for the future.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:21

And it just hit home to me that we cannot keep doing that because this world that I thought as a child was the biggest, most adventurous place you could imagine is actually not that big. And there's an awful lot of us on it. And we're not

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:33

managing the resources that we have as as you would on a boat.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:37

Because we don't have the impression that these resources are limited.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:40

Yeah.

Presenter29:40

And so

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:41

Well that

Presenter29:42

Personal moment of epiphany for you. Has that given you a very different perspective on what comes next? You sound to me like somebody who maybe thinks.

Presenter29:51

A change of direction it might not be a challenge on a boat.

Dame Ellen MacArthur29:55

I never thought that anything in my life could eclipse sailing. I didn't think it was possible. But after being in South Georgia, after learning these.

Presenter29:58

Fuck in the

Dame Ellen MacArthur30:02

these lessons, I suppose, and the more I researched into it, the more frightened I got. And that has really scared me to the point that I can't go back to sea and go around the world again because this really matters.

Presenter30:14

Will you never do it then? That's it? You've drawn a line under that part of your life?

Dame Ellen MacArthur30:18

I still sail. I love sailing. I still sail for pleasure. I sail with our charity, the Alamakartha Trust, with kids with cancer and leukemia. But as long as this.

Presenter30:19

Yeah.

Dame Ellen MacArthur30:28

challenge is there to be communicated, then will I invest four years of my life into sailing around the world? No, because this new understanding for me has become far more important.

Presenter30:39

Now, I, of course, am about to maroon you on a desert island. Unlike most of our castaways, I'm imagining you'll be absolutely fine, won't you? You'll be able to make a shelter, find food, keep yourself safe.

Dame Ellen MacArthur30:51

Um, I'd do my best, but I'd miss people.

Dame Ellen MacArthur30:55

Absolutely, I'd miss people, but I'd have I'd have a a good shot at it, that's for sure.

Presenter30:59

Tell me about your final track today, why have you chosen this?

Dame Ellen MacArthur31:02

Final track's Cold Play Fix You and this track normally makes me cry because we used it on a video for the Anna MacArthur Trust, which takes young people sailing with cancer and leukemia.

Dame Ellen MacArthur31:13

And I've been sailing with young people with cantonalumia since 1999. And in 2003, we created our own charity called the Ellen MacArthur Trust that did the same thing in this country. My initial experience was in France. And they are the most inspirational people you could ever spend time with, and they have totally changed my life. And this track just sums up all that we do at the Trust.

Speaker 231:35

Oh no,

Dame Ellen MacArthur31:35

Uh

Speaker 231:36

Yeah.

Speaker 231:39

Could it be wild?

Presenter31:49

What will God

Speaker 231:51

Uh I chill.

Speaker 231:55

I will try.

Presenter32:03

That was Coldplay and Fix You. So, Ellen McCarthy, I'm going to give you a copy of the Bible and a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. You can take a book of your own. What would you like to take to the island?

Presenter32:14

Probably fairly

Dame Ellen MacArthur32:14

Sadly I chose the SAS Survival Handbook.

Presenter32:17

This is a very tricky one. It might be too useful, but um

Dame Ellen MacArthur32:17

This is a vague

Presenter32:22

It's a book. It is a book, yeah.

Presenter32:25

Okay, I'll just give up. I mean, I don't really want to give you up, but.

Presenter32:29

Seeing as you're so nice, you can have it.

Presenter32:31

And a luxury too. Maybe you won't need a luxury. You'll need something to make life.

Presenter32:37

More bearable.

Dame Ellen MacArthur32:38

Well, it wasn't a land and animal, and that would absolutely have been my first choice. So, I chose a little purple worm that I had with me on the round the world. And I think they're called slinky worms. It was a fluffy worm, like a big fluffy pipe cleaner with eyes, goggly eyes. And it made me smile, and I thought, this is a very light thing that I could take on the boat that will make me smile, and it did.

Presenter32:59

He's yours on the island. And if you had to take just one of these eight tracks here today, which is the one.

Presenter33:06

Track that you choose.

Dame Ellen MacArthur33:09

I'd probably choose Boys of Summer because it's my ultimate all time favourite song and it motivates you and I think if you're on your own on an island, motivation is absolutely what you'd need.

Presenter33:18

Dame Ellen MacArthur, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you.

Presenter33:30

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.