Spirit as deep as the ocean

SAILING/Interview with Ellen MacArthur: "You don't think about death," says Ellen MacArthur. "If you go out there thinking you won't come back, you'll not bother setting out."

Her grandfather spent his life down the pits. She was born in Derbyshire. Taking on the world's oceans were never part of MacArthur's early childhood dreams. Still, at eight years old she stepped on to her aunt's boat and the water bug bit. Since then she has been reshaping sailing records, the most recent of which ended in Ushant on the coast of France in February of this year when she set a new solo, non-stop round-the-world time.

Two and a half years preparing, two and a half months sailing and after 71 days, 14 hours and 18 minutes, MacArthur trimmed the record by one day, eight hours, 35 minutes and 49 seconds.

Now probably the best known face in sailing, MacArthur talks of a strange kind of existence, a lifestyle, philosophy and sport rolled into one.

A pioneering spirit, she is far from being riddled with eccentricities. The 28-year-old is disarmingly ordinary, a personality that would melt into any crowd, but the owner of inviolable determination and courage.

MacArthur is unbreakable. In Dublin with her communications sponsor Esat BT, she said her last trip was also her most difficult.

"What you learn about yourself is what you are capable of doing, but also what you are not capable of doing," she says. "Both things. I took myself to my own human limits and learned that I could not go any further."

Snatching sleep in 20-minute spells for long stretches of the voyage, her physical endurance was also battered by the highs and lows of the effort.

Having successfully battled storms in the Southern Ocean she emerged into the south Atlantic, only to see her lead over the previous record whittled away by five days of light air.

"It drives you mad. When there's no wind you go insane," she says.

"In the Southern Ocean when we had very big storms, you try to stay on the front side of it and sail as fast as you can to keep out of the worst of it. You can see on the forecast that it's (wind) 50 knots, then 60, then 80. Obviously if you are in that wind and a sea that is horrifically confused, it's not the best place to be.

"If everything goes well you should be able to stay on the right side of it. If something goes wrong, you're in big trouble.

"You have to prepare for the worst and you spend hours and hours preparing the boat in a way that if you did capsize you could still live on board.

"Mentally that really helps you so when things are really tough and there is a huge storm coming you know you couldn't be better prepared. Sure you know it's dangerous. Setting off to sail around the world is dangerous."

To avoid sleep deprivation and catastrophic mistakes, MacArthur clung to the theories of Dr Claudio Stampi of the Chronobiology Research Institute in Harvard. Frequent short period naps rather than one long stretch over 24 hours worked for her, but at the end she was frayed and threadbare.

Still, Stampi's theory will be employed again in her next project when she attempts a West-East transatlantic record in September or October of this year.

"What I do next isn't about topping what I've already done," she explains.

"It's about learning and pushing myself and enjoying what I do. This one was a lot less fun than the last round-the-world race I did. I can say that very openly and honestly.

"Harder boat to sail. No one out there with you, no one else in the race. It was just absolutely exhausting."

She set out on November 28th last year in her 75ft trimaran B&Q. She sailed 27,354 miles, travelling at an average speed of 15.9 knots and had plenty of time to think.

"The one thing that I did feel when I got home was how stressed people get about things that are really irrelevant," she says.

"They get stressed about things that really don't matter. It's really quite pathetic. That shocks you when you get back."

As only the second person ever to sail around the world solo in a multi-hulled boat, more people have stood on the moon and thousands more have conquered Everest.

And she's not finished yet.