It was an astonishing achievement, completed in February 2005 when she arrived in glory at Falmouth, that capped an unprecedented career which was to continue for 12 more months but effectively ended with that record.
One of the many fascinating aspects of MacArthur’s brief appearance at the peak of the solo sailing world is that, with every passing year, it becomes harder to explain, not easier. It was an outlier in almost every respect featuring a young woman who streaked across the sailing firmament like a meteor or a shooting star.
Why harder to explain? Well, for starters, no other woman has come close to achieving what MacArthur did – two victories in professional solo transatlantic races – the Europe 1 New Man Star (the forerunner of the Transat CIC), and the Route du Rhum – the small matter of second place in the Vendée Globe to Michel Desjoyeaux, and then a solo round-the-world record when she got round the planet in 71 days.
Then there was the intensity. This was a lifetime at sea crammed into 10 frenetic years when MacArthur raced and raced, or trained or delivered boats, covering about 250,000 nautical miles before hanging up her sea boots before she was even 30. It left her exhausted and everyone who worked with her gasping for air. And because she stopped so abruptly, has never returned to competitive sailing and rarely talks about her sailing career in public, it all seems especially stark in retrospect.
And there was the profile. One of the great communicators who wore her heart on her sleeve, MacArthur achieved what no other British sailor has since the heyday of Britain’s solo ocean sailing pioneers, men like Francis Chichester and Robin Knox-Johnston. She became a household name in both Britain and France and elsewhere, with a mainstream media presence that included being lampooned by comedians on popular TV comedy shows.
Oh – I almost forgot – her background. What were the chances that a young woman brought up on a small-holding in rural Derbyshire with no outstanding sailing forebears, would very quickly not just find her feet in professional sailing, but become one of the best of the best? Sailors come from all backgrounds, but this aspect of MacArthur’s career and emergence onto the world stage from relative obscurity still amazes me all these years later. Remember, she wanted to be a vet, a career choice that would have been more realistic, you might think, than trying to become an elite class sailor.
