The first and the fastest: comparing Robin Knox-Johnston and Ellen Macarthur's round-the-world voyages

This is the story of two single-handed non-stop round-the-world voyages: Robin Knox-Johnston's in 1968/9 and Ellen MacArthur's in 2004/5.

Although there were similarities (both voyages started and finished in Falmouth, for instance, and neither sailor was in a conventional race) the story is mainly one of contrasts, mostly as a consequence of 36 years of technological developments.

These gave MacArthur the opportunity for a considerably faster voyage, but that came at a price in that her trimaran B&Q provided more challenges than Knox-Johnston's monohull Suhaili.