Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Yachtswoman who became the fastest person to sail solo round the world.
On the island
Eight records
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.
The Boys of SummerFavourite
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. And that look was so telling. It just said everything. And I just thought to myself in that moment how 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.
Well Dido was another track that was used in the documentary after the Vonde Globe. 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.
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.
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. 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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:07What was the moment that you realized that land wasn't far off [at the end of your record-breaking voyage]?
The thing that really hit me was the smell of the land. 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.
Presenter asks
1:37When you crossed that line, did you allow yourself, as you were alone, a little personal moment of triumph?
It's funny there was nothing like that. 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.
Presenter asks
2:56Is it an odd thing to recalibrate yourself, that sort of period of entry back into normal society?
The keepsakes
The luxury
a little purple worm (slinky worm)
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.
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. 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.
Presenter asks
13:14Tell me about when you started saving for your own boat.
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 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.
Presenter asks
20:19Can your parents ever understand why you're making the choice to do what you do?
I think they knew I was following my heart, and that I had to do that. I think they they understood that, but it must have been so hard for them.
Presenter asks
29:41Has that personal moment of epiphany [in South Georgia] given you a very different perspective on what comes next?
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... 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.
“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.”
“I remember looking down into this little cabin, and it was a tiny cabin. 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.”
“I thought to myself in that moment how 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.”
“I realized something for the first time that really jarred inside me. 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 won't make it.”