Ellen Macarthur

Inspired by a sailing trip with her aunt on the East Coast when she was four, Ellen MacArthur saved her school-dinner money for eight years to buy her first boat, an 8-foot dinghy called Thr'penny Bit. A bout of glandular fever in her final year at school ended her plans to become a vet. But, transfixed by scenes from the Whitbread Race being shown on television while she convalesced, she resolved to become a sailor instead. Aged eighteen, she won the BT/YJA Young Sailor of the Year award. She sailed round the coast of Britain in her 21-foot boat, Iduna, the following year.

In 1997 she raced single-handed across the Atlantic and was named BT/YJA Yachtsman of the Year 1998. In finishing the Vendée Globe round-the-world race in just ninety-four days she became the fastest Briton ever to sail around the world alone. She was named Sunday Times Person of the Year 2001 and runner-up in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Ellen MacArthur lives in Cowes on the Isle of Wight.