I am such a huge fan of her. For those of you who don't know, Dame Ellen sailed around the world solo in 71 days back in 2005. It's a stunning achievement that the vast majority of us simply cannot comprehend.
For starters, when most of us think of the ocean, we get a picture in our mind that's something like this:
Or, for some of us, this:
But I digress. Here's something a little more to the point:
Or if you're into John Singer Sargent, here's one of his paintings:
Now those are waves. Ellen MacArthur sailed through those, and far, far worse, in this, the B&Q/Castorama trimaran:
And remember, she was its only crewmember; both the larboard and the starboard watch, if you will. During basically the entire trip, she has to constantly sail the ship. During the 71 days and a bit that the trip took, the longest sleep she ever got was 20 minutes at a time.
Just think about that as a physical accomplishment. Never mind the sailing, the waves and whatnot; just the idea of staying up for 71 days while only sleeping in 20-minute increments boggles the mind. Us garden-variety insomniacs can't even begin to imagine it, let alone combining it with extreme physical and mental strain. That a person can go through that and not go insane speaks to an almost superhuman level of endurance. Not to mention the determination that it takes to not, you know, just give up.
On the whole, I totally agree with what Jeremy Clarkson said to her when she was on Top Gear: if it wasn't for people like her, we'd all still be living in caves. Although if I recall correctly, we never did live in caves as such, but I think it's fair to say that if none of us ever pushed the boundaries of what a person is meant to do and where they're meant to go, we'd still be a bunch of savanna-dwelling primates. In boldly going where no woman and few men had ever gone before, she's a proper role model for us all.
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