MacArthur Tops the Bill at RYA Yachtmaster Conference

This year’s annual gathering of RYA instructors and examiners from the world-class RYA Yachtmaster training scheme were treated to a number of excellent presentations from specialist speakers and yachting personalities.

Topping the bill on the first day was ISAF World Sailor of the Year 2001 Ellen MacArthur, an RYA Yachtmaster Instructor herself, who gave a moving and light-hearted insight into her endeavours and future plans.
Starting her presentation Ellen showed some powerful and at times emotional footage from the range of international offshore events she competed in last year, including the Vendee Globe, EDS Challenge and the Transat Jacques Vabre.

She then reflected on the first RYA Yachtmaster conference she attended back in 1996, introducing a number of humorous anecdotes ranging from attending a diesel engine maintenance course to carrying out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a first aid course, where she pointed out the complexity of this manoeuvre when on your own.

She also recalled that she started sailing, like many in the audience, playing around in an 8’ dinghy and scribbling notes and sketches in her school books and later attending a ‘pay and play’ sailing centre run by Derbyshire County Council.

Having been bitten by the bug she bought ‘Iduna’, a small cruising boat and invested in an RYA course at the then David King Nautical School in Hull aged seventeen, where she became one of the youngest RYA Yachtmasters.
Looking to the future Ellen remarked on the advances that have been made in the area of shorthanded sailing safety, in particular, development in ‘Active Echo’ and introduced some of the new projects planned with the support of her sponsor Kingfisher, who operate household names like B&Q and Comet in Great Britain.