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Morning News

Young Englishwoman Finishes Around-The-World Boat Race

Aired February 15, 2001 - 11:36 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We don't even who won the race.

Tom Mintier might, but does anybody care there in London today, Tom?

TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miles, I don't think that anybody does -- hi, Daryn -- this is an amazing picture. What we're watching here is a heroine's welcome back in Southampton.

And as you were saying, it's hard to believe that she came in second. Even when she came into France, it looked like she was the winner. If you had the sound down on the television and were watching the pictures, you would think she won the race. I mean, you see her now holding up a red flare.

It's interesting when you read some of the transcripts of what she was talking about during her voyage, she said that the one thing she missed the most was the countryside. She says: I haven't seen a tree for nearly three months. So you can imagine how difficult it was.

And looking at some of the pictures that came back from Kingfisher during the voyage, she went through some very, very rough seas and some difficult times with Kingfisher. She had -- she spent five hours one night resewing a sail. Imagine in the dark trying to sew a sail while you're coming across the choppy Atlantic.

So she had a very rough go of it. There's one entry in her log book on February the 6th, fairly close to the time the race ended, she says: I ran out of chocolate and now having a hankering for a pizza. So she had some low times and some high times. She said she opened her ration box once, and she ate all the malt teasers in one day. So apparently, she is quite the chocoholic.

As she returns here today...

O'BRIEN: That's enough -- Tom, that's enough to call in for an air drop. I think, you know.

You know, looking at her with that flare, there's a bit of irony there: that the flare would be used normally in a distress situation; just the opposite going on here.

Less than 100 days -- but 100 days alone on a ship. DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It can't be easy.

O'BRIEN: Try to think about that, try to conjure that up for a moment: That's got to be incredible.

KAGAN: In treacherous conditions, as well.

O'BRIEN: And given her level of experience, Tom -- she's 24 years old, and yet has, obviously, a tremendous amount of inner strength and courage, despite those log entries that we heard about. What is her experience and background to be able to do this?

MINTIER: Well, she doesn't really come from the sailing set. She saved up her lunch money from school to buy her first dingy, which was an eight footer.

And she really -- you know, this event that she just finished, she sent out 2,500 applications for sponsorship and she only got two letters back, two answers back. But those who sponsored her, I'm sure, are reaping the rewards in the last week.

you know, as you were saying at the top, this woman finished second, and when you look in the way she came in in France, and now the way she's coming back to Britain, this woman is truly a national heroine. And when you think of what she went through and the difficulties she had -- being alone for basically 94 days -- it's tough.

KAGAN: Tom, just hold on one second. We're going to go ahead and interrupt you just for a second so we can listen to the -- the comments coming from Britain, from ITN.

Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Touch me very deeply she said, and she's now in tears. That's Ellen MacArthur, who genuinely is in tears there when I asked her what was it like to be home.

Excuse me, you've got some flare smoke in the eye because of all that -- lighting off a few flares.

Ellen MacArthur back in Southampton with her two records.

KAGAN: OK, so a little local flavor there.

Tom, another thing to put in perspective, if we still -- do we still have Tom with us? Still there?

MINTIER: Yes, I'm still here.

KAGAN: Yes, there you are.

Put in perspective not just her age, but her gender. Yachting tends to be a boy's club, as I understand it. MINTIER: Most definitely, and when you think of what she has accomplished just as a human being, not as a woman, it's pretty amazing that -- what she went through and the stormy seas and the problems on the boat. She showed tremendous inner strength. And you know, despite the fact of running out of chocolate, when you think of spending basically three months alone sailing -- and you can't sleep, she went into special training to learn how to sleep for 10 minutes at a time; so for this 94 days that she was at sea, she was up most of it, and she learned to take, you know, a 10-minute cat nap, and that's all you're allowed to have, 24 hours a day.

So tremendous inner strength.

O'BRIEN: Now, Tom, all through this, she was receiving e-mails. As a matter of fact, a few of them came from Buckingham Palace. But one that she chose to single out when she arrived back having completed the race -- it said courage is not having the energy to go on; it's going on when you do not have the energy. And then, she added, that is true. Boy, that sums up this mission in a nutshell, doesn't it?

MINTIER: It really does. And you know I was talking earlier that she's a heroine in Britain. She's also a role model, I think, for a lot of young children, not only -- not only that may want to go into the yachting field, but children in general. You set a goal and you find a way to make it happen, whether it's saving your lunch money to buy your first boat or what she has accomplished in the last three months.

KAGAN: Well as we said, we're expecting Ellen MacArthur to hold a news conference once maybe that champagne has been shared a bit.

More live pictures there from Southampton.

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