Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

The first two weeks in October I was away on a bit of a holiday. Not surprisingly it involved boats, and a bit of sailing - but surprisingly it was on the inland waterways of Great Britain!

The goal was to try to paddle a collapsible canoe for roughly 300 miles to circumnavigate the industrial heartland of Great Britain. I adapted the canoe to sail and be steered, and fashioned a sailing rig from some fibreglass tent poles. I made a tent on the old Singer sewing machine that my Mum made her wedding dress on, and enjoyed the preparation as much as the journey itself. I love making things! It also brought back many memories of my childhood as I spent hours on the floor using that same machine making everything from my first pair of sailing trousers, to the cover for the life-ring on my second little boat.

The journey took two weeks, and involved a mixture of rivers and canals. It went through the most beautiful countryside and wide rivers, to the tiniest canals sometimes passing through the centre of a city. The contrasts were startling, and about 8 hours paddling a day gave you time to think about the history of the area. It was so, so obvious that in the 1700’s and 1800’s the canal was the main centre of the town, that it carried the produce and raw materials into the towns and villages and the finished products out.

It was also clear that the railways (which were often built close to the canals to get the sleepers in) took over the canals soon after, and then when they began to build roads, they took over from the railways! Amazing to think that we can go round in a complete circle as now railways are considered great transport networks, but many of the working lines were closed. They became cycle tracks which now follow not far from the canals route.

As human beings we have developed some pretty impressive ideas and then gone ahead and built them. I am sure that when the canals were built they were the best form of transport since sliced bread, it was certainly much easier pulling the canoe and it’s 50Kg weight with a rope than paddling it, or worse carrying it and the gear! I am sure that once canals became established transport networks, everyone believed that they would last forever. The reality is though that technology and transport pushed by reduced delivery times all come into play and we looked for bigger, faster, newer and better. We are still in this phase though and in our modern competitive world speed appears to be everything. My two week 300 mile trip would certainly not have been as rewarding if I’d flown it in three hours, or driven it in 12!

ellen