Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

I had a great day yesterday at the Southampton Boat Show - and it even stopped raining for a bit!

In the morning, I joined Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, Lady Pippa Blake, actress Kate O’Mara (known for her role in the ’80s TV series Howards Way) and powerboat racer Steve Curtis on the main stage to represent boating through the decades since the 1960s. It was really fantastic to see Suhaili, Sir Robin’s teak-hulled ketch on display - what a fine, sturdy-looking boat she is!

It was also nice to see all the Team GB Olympic sailors led onto the stage by Ben Ainslie - they were looking understandably tired - it has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for them - but in very good spirits.

I then had time to visit some of the stands and catch up with our sailing team sponsors, including Paul Honess at Marlow Ropes who has been doing some interesting development work with Yvan Joucla, our rigger on the BT Open 60, in preparation for the Vendée Globe.

I was also really pleased to go to Geoff Holt’s book launch. Geoff gave me a copy of “Walking on Water” when he kindly asked me to write the afterword for it and I have to say I couldn’t put it down. He really is the most amazing man and it’s a really incredible book. You must read it!

Ellen

Coming back to the Isle of Wight the other day after a trip on the ‘mainland’to sail with the Ellen MacArthur Trust, I was getting off the car ferry and a thought process begun in my mind… 
We have a small chain ferry which runs from East Cowes to West Cowes. The journey takes about 2 minutes (depending on the height of the tide!) but saves a 10 mile trip. 
Queuing for the chain ferry, I was wondering whether it was better to drive round or wait. I chose to wait as I felt that it would waste less fuel and with loading and unloading the time difference is negligible compared to driving round.
Whilst waiting though, I did a little calculation…
The journey if I drove it in my Renault would have been driven at an averageof about 45mpg. As a 10 mile trip that would have used about 1.01 litres offuel (I always think of a whole 1L carton of orange juice!)
That diesel would have cost me about £1.37 to buy. The cost of the chainferry is £1.50. For my car that works out cheaper to drive round (thoughonly just). If your car did around 35 mpg (which I would guess is a fairly average mpg), then that drive would cost you £1.62 and be more expensive!
I never imagined the two would be so comparable!
If you are a local however, you can go one step further and buy a book of 20tickets which work out at 88 pence per ticket. Therefore I was making asaving of fuel, AND of money (49p!) by taking the chain ferry! 
Fantastic stuff….