Clarisse Cremer is the 12th Vendee Globe racer to cross the finish line in Les Sables d’Olonne, having completed the solo, non-stop around the world race in 87 days, 02 hours, 24 minutes, and 25 seconds.
She is the first female skipper to complete the 2020-2021 race. Her time broke Ellen MacArthur‘s solo non-stop record for a female skipper of 94 days 4 hours, which MacArthur set when she took second in the 2000-2001 Vendée Globe.
Sail-World reports that MacArthur sent a message of congratulations to Cremer, “Hi Clarisse, just a little message to say a big bravo for your race around the world. It’s great to see you at the finish line. It’s truly an exceptional lap. Well done for everything you have done!”
The 31 year old Cremer played down her ranking as first female to finish, “For me, yes we know that being a woman in ocean racing becomes a differentiator on land. But this is a mixed race and a mixed sport and it about the breadth of ocean racing together. There is no female classification. At sea, I am a sailor, and I don’t tell myself that the sailor in front is a man or a woman, I don’t think about that at all.”
In the past eight sailings of the Vendee Globe race, there have never been more than two female sailors competing in each race. This time, six female skippers started the race. Sam Davies was forced to retire after hitting an underwater floating object. Isabelle Joschke retired after a mechanical failure in her boat’s canting keel. Three are still sailing. Pip Hare, Miranda Merron, and Alexia Barrier are in 19th, 23rd and 24th place respectively in the current rankings.
CLAP DE FIN D’UNE BELLE AVENTURE – CLARISSE CREMER – VOILE BANQUE POPULAIRE
Congratulations Clarisse Cremer! I don’t know why we have to separate the men from the women in the awards of this particular competition.
Linda,
I agree that we shouldn’t separate women from the race. Indeed the Vendee Globe has never done so. All sailors, regardless of gender, compete on an equal basis. I do however think it is worthwhile to acknowledge women in the race. In this year’s race, there are now three times as many women sailing in the Vendee Globe than in any time in the race’s history. That alone is worth celebrating.
Further to Rick and thinking about the practical outcomes of Cremer’s achievement, there’s a lot of fossilized mentality still in effect and shaping possibilities for equality, acutely in need of object lessons.
Here’s a good lesson to dislodge minds stuck on reefs.
“Oh, a woman can’t do [thing] because [prejudicial belief].
Really? Because the empirical data in hand suggests thinking needs to be updated. Explain how the data is wrong, in the face of reality. 🙂
There was an amusing story going around at the time of Ellen MacArthur’s record breaking circumnavigation that a customer of B&Q (the company that sponsored her) had complained that it took longer for them to deliver an new kitchen from a store a few miles from their home than Ellen took to sail right around the world.
Well done to both of them and all the other competing women for breaking through the glass companionway.