Dame Ellen MacArthur

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2009

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is the solo yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur. She was 28 when she became the fastest person to sail solo around the world, and has been called the 'first true heroine of the 21st century'. She still sails with friends and with the charity she set up for children with cancer and leukaemia, but her ambition now is to try to find a way of living the same sustainable existence on land that she lives at sea. When your life depends on it, she says, you realise how scarce food and fuel really are.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Boys of Summer by Don Henley Book: SAS Survival Handbook by John 'Lofty' Wiseman Luxury: A fluffy purple worm (which has been taken everywhere).

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.7	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.4	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to helping
0:22.7	you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put together
0:28.7	by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:41.9	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:45.1	The program was originally broadcast in 2009.
1:12.7	Music My castaway this week is the yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur. At just 28, she became the fastest person to sail solo around the world. With her limitless passion for the sea and iron will to triumph, she's been
1:18.9	called the first true heroine of the 21st century. Yet her upbringing and approach seems to
1:24.8	hark back to a much more old-fashioned time. As a girl, she poured over the pages
1:29.7	of swallows and amazons and skipped school lunches, saving her pennies to buy a little dingy. Of sailing
1:36.1	alone for the first time as a child, she says, I felt a mixture of freedom, responsibility and
1:41.9	respect for the water,ings which remain unchanged today.
1:46.9	Ellen, it was 2005 then when you became the fastest person to sail solo non-stop around the globe.
1:52.5	What was the moment that you realised that land wasn't far off?
1:57.4	The thing that really hit me was the smell of the land.
2:00.5	This smell of land was something I hadn't smelled for two and a half months,
2:03.7	and it was so strong.
2:05.5	It was really strong, really, definitely plants.
2:09.0	You could smell plants, but it was the earth, actually, I think.
	...

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