Dame Ellen Patricia MacArthur DBE (born 8 July 1976) is a retired English sailor, from Whatstandwell near Matlock in Derbyshire, now based in Cowes, Isle of Wight.

She acquired her early interest in sailing, firstly by her desire to emulate her idol at the time, Sophie Burke,[4] and secondly by reading Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books.

She saved her school dinner money for three years to buy her first boat, an eight-foot dinghy, which she named Threp'ny Bit even though decimalisation had taken place before she was born.

[8] In 2003, she captained a round-the-world record attempt for a crewed yacht in Kingfisher 2 (a catamaran formerly owned by Bruno Peyron and known as Orange), but was thwarted by a broken mast in the Southern Ocean.

A trimaran named B&Q/Castorama (after two companies in the Kingfisher group) unveiled in January 2004, was specially designed by Nigel Irens and Benoit Cabaret for her to break solo records.

Using the yacht, her first significant record attempt in 2004 to break the west–east transatlantic crossing time failed by around one and a quarter hours, after over seven days of sailing.

On 8 February 2005, following her return to England, it was announced that she was to be made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to sailing.

[12] In October 2009 MacArthur announced her intention to retire from competitive racing to concentrate on the subject of resource and energy use in the global economy.

[13] In June 2000, MacArthur sailed the monohull Kingfisher from Plymouth, UK to Newport, Rhode Island, USA in 14 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes.

[14] MacArthur's second place in the 2000–2001 edition of the Vendée Globe, with a time of 94 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes, was the world record for a single-handed, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman.

[16] In June 2004, MacArthur sailed her trimaran B&Q/Castorama from Ambrose Light, Lower New York Bay, USA to Lizard Point, Cornwall, UK in 7 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes.

The aim is to give terminally ill young people their own customised sleeping unit to enable children in separate age groups to have their families stay with them.

[27][28] On 17 May 2017, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Prince of Wales' International Sustainability Unit launched a US$2 million prize fund for innovations which work towards the management of waste plastics.

[29][30] The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a founding member and partner of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE), which was launched out of the World Economic Forum.