![]() Twice she climbed to the top of the mast. She probably raised and lowered sails that weigh twice as much as she does more than 1,000 times. Just handling the helm and trimming the sails was more than a full-time job. She rarely slept more than four hours in a day and rarely more than 20 minutes at a time. A single false move could have led to a capsize thousands of miles from help. It is much faster than a monohull, but not nearly as stable. McArthur’s craft was a trimaran she called Mobi because the central hull reminded her of a sperm whale. When Sir Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail around the world alone without stopping in 1969, it took 312 days and he did it on a traditional monohull. What is most impressive about McArthur’s accomplishment is the stamina required to push her beast of a vessel around-the-clock, day after day. The petite young lady - she stands at just five-foot, two-inches - traveled at an average of 15.9 knots on a flying journey that took her south of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, through Southern Ocean gales and towering seas. Not only that, but she did it in just 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds to break the previous record. Late Monday a 28-year-old woman named Ellen MacArthur did the impossible, completing a 27,354-mile lap around the world in a 75-foot trimaran. To undertake a solo attempt on a multi-hull vessel - a feat that only five sailors had attempted and only one had completed - pushes the imagination (and perhaps the analogy) to something close to impossible, maybe something akin to scrambling up the world’s tallest peak barefoot. Making the circumnavigation alone and without stopping for supplies or rest is a bit like making the ascent without oxygen or sherpas. Sailing around the world is the nautical equivalent of climbing Everest. ![]()
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