Why Ellen MacArthur won't be racing any time soon

7:58 AM Mon 11 May 2009 GMT

''The way we are living as human beings is not sustainable and it cannot go on.'' .

'It would seem hypocritical to continue competitively sailing.' These are the words of Dame Ellen MacArthur, who is currently on a sailing voyage around the British Isles. The 32-year-old says she now has a far more important role to play, with the focus of her attentions on the issue of resource sustainability.

She says she has 'no immediate plans to return to the competitive sailing circuit', turning her attention instead to her role in charity and environmental awareness work.

While it is competitive sailing which has made her one of the most famous women sailors of all time, ironically it is her time spent at sea that has brought her to the conclusion that competitive sailing is 'hypocritical'.

This is because she attributes her growing awareness and passion for solving the 'serious global problem of resource sustainability' to her experiences at sea.

"Through the sailing I have done it's slowly dawned on me that the way we're living out lives is not sustainable and it can't carry on the way it is.

"I can't sit here and say I don't want to go sailing any more, I was there at the start of the Vendee Globe last year and I would have absolutely loved to have been out there on the water. But right now the realisation that the whole way we are living as human beings is not sustainable - it's pretty serious.

"It's from sailing that I have learnt this - through sailing we have quite a special insight into it because we manage resources so carefully."

The issue of sustainability and ensuring that every individual is aware of the role they have to play is a topic on which MacArthur may touch as she begins a series of one-hour presentations about her life at 15 of the 17 destinations on the nationwide trip around Britain.

The expedition, due to last just over four months, will see MacArthur and her team sail with young cancer and leukaemia sufferers. She explains that the freedom these children feel when they are at sea provides them with a sense of escapism they can not always access in their day-to-day lives.

'We help them to almost forget what they have been through.' - .. .

'For these young people they've been though cancer and they've been treated differently because of that,' MacArthur explained. 'Not through anyone's fault but just because - how do you treat a kid with cancer? When you're at school with them no one knows what to say.

'They've become quite isolated and people don't know how to talk to them and the really good thing that the Trust does is that it takes these young people, and we take them away to help them almost forget what they've been through.

'They're sailing with people who have been though exactly the same thing so they don't have to talk about it, there's no need to explain what they've been through or what they're going through - everyone understands and it's an unsaid thing and everyone just gets on and has fun.

'That in itself helps build the confidence of these young people.'

As the team make their way around the British Isles a virtual boat will navigate the same route. It represents another fund-raising initiative which involves the public in donating ?10 to move the vessel one mile.

Optimistic, MacArthur is hoping to see the virtual boat circumnavigate the nation five times.

For more information about the voyage around Britain, visit the Round Britainwebsite.

by Emily Benammar/Sail-World Cruising

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