Dame Ellen MacArthur is an English sailor and environmentalist. She is most famous as a solo long distance yachtswoman who broke the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the world in February 2005.

Ellen retired from professional sailing in 2010 and announced the launch of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The foundation aims to educate people and businesses on the benefits of a circular economy, an economic model that seeks to reduce waste and increase sustainability in the modern world.

Inspired at a young age to take up sailing by the Arthur Ransome children’s novel series Swallows and Amazons, Ellen saved up her school dinner money in order to buy her first boat, an 8ft dinghy she named Threp’ny Bit.

She first gained wider attention in 1995 when she sailed around Great Britain solo aged 18, becoming the youngest person to sail single-handed round Britain in her 21ft Corribee, Iduna.

She moved into offshore racing, competing in the 1997 Mini Transat in her 21ft Classe Mini Le Poisson where she finished 17th.

In 1998 she was named “Yachtsman of the Year” in the UK. She teamed up with Mark Turner to form Offshore Challenges to manage her sailing projects, and also went on to run campaigns with sailors including Sam Davies and Nick Moloney, and events including the Extreme Sailing Series.

MacArthur came 2nd in the 2000/01 Vendée Globe in her Owen Clarke/Rob Humphreys-designed Kingfisher. At 24 she was the youngest competitor in the solo non-stop round-the-world race.

MacArthur went on to skipper a crewed Jules Verne around the world record attempt in the catamaran Kingfisher 2 in 2003, but a broken mast cut their attempt short.

On the 28th of November 2004 Ellen MacArthur began her solo circumnavigation attempt in a trimaran named B&Q/Castorama. The 75ft trimaran was specially designed by Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret for her record attempt.

During her record attempt, she set records for the fastest solo voyage to the equator, past the Cape of Good Hope, past Cape Horn and back to the equator again.

She crossed the finishing line near the French coast at Ushant at 22:29 UTC on 7 February 2005 beating the previous record set by French sailor Francis Joyon by 1 day, 8 hours, 35 minutes, 49 seconds.

In 2009 MacArthur announced she was retiring from competitive sailing, having been inspired during her round the world voyages to protect the earth’s resources. Her TED talk ‘The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world’ has been viewed more than 2 million times. The Ellen Macarthur Foundation was set up in Cowes in 2010 and now operates globally.

In 2003, MacArthur also set up the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, a charity which takes young people aged 8-24 sailing to help them regain their confidence whilst recovering from cancer, leukaemia and other serious illnesses.