solo around the world sailboat race

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Unesco and the vendée globe: together for a better understanding of the ocean, discover the antarctic with polar journal.

One globe, one ocean

The Vendée Globe aims to use the media impact of the event to raise public awareness of ocean conservation throughout the round-the-world race. By sailing around the world, the Vendée Globe sailors are highlighting the fragility of our oceans faced with global warming. They are direct witnesses to the changes underway, particularly around Antarctica, a region that is under particular threat.

Soft mobility

The Vendée Globe adventure doesn't start in Les Sables d'Olonne! It starts from home, by using a low-carbon mode of transport to get to the race village. The organisers have set up a mobility committee to bring together all the public and private players involved and propose soft mobility solutions for getting to the village.

44 candidates

Fabrice Amedeo

Romain Attanasio

Éric Bellion

Yannick Bestaven

Jérémie Beyou

Arnaud Boissières

Louis Burton

Conrad Colman

Antoine Cornic

Manuel Cousin

Clarisse Crémer

Charlie Dalin

Samantha Davies

Violette Dorange

Benjamin Dutreux

Benjamin Ferré

Sam Goodchild

François Guiffant

James Harayda

Oliver Heer

Boris Herrmann

Isabelle Joschke

Jean Le Cam

Tanguy Le Turquais

Nicolas Lunven

Sébastien Marsset

Paul Meilhat

Justine Mettraux

Giancarlo Pedote

Yoann Richomme

Thomas Ruyant

Damien Seguin

Kojiro Shiraishi

Sébastien Simon

Maxime Sorel

Guirec Soudée

Nicolas Troussel

Denis Van Weynbergh

Szabolcs Weöres

What is the Vendée Globe?

The Vendée Globe is a single-handed, non-stop, non-assisted round-the-world sailing race that takes place every four years. It is contested on IMOCA monohulls, which are 18 metres long. The skippers set off from Les Sables-d'Olonne in Vendée and sail around 45,000 kilometres around the globe, rounding the three legendary capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and finally Cape Horn) before returning to Les Sables d'Olonne. The race has acquired an international reputation, attracting skippers from all over the world. Beyond the competition, it is above all an incredible human adventure.

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Cole Brauer finishes the Global Solo Challenge in Second Place

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Cole Brauer is the first American woman to sail nonstop, alone around the world

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• Julia Corcoran

Fewer than 200 people have ever sailed solo non-stop around the world. Cole Brauer is the only American woman among them.

The 29-year-old completed the 30,000-mile journey last week when she stepped off her 40-foot sailboat, First Light, and onto dry land after 130 days at sea. Brauer was the only woman out of 16 boats that competed in the race, the Global Solo Challenge, this year. She finished the race, which began in late October, on March 7 in Spain.

9 questions with Cole Brauer

What is it like to walk on land after 130 days at sea?

"Everyone really thought that I was going to like trip or stumble and people were really concerned about me. My dad even kind of picked me off the boat and carried me for a second. But I think because I was exercising on the boat, I was doing things, I wasn't just sitting down below, and the boat is constantly moving quite quickly that I never got the vertigo type of feeling that you normally would get."

What was it like to see people, your family again? Did you laugh? Did you cry?

"I think I was the only person not crying on the dock. The entire crowd, my parents, my team, I got second place and even the first-place competitor when he handed me my trophy was even crying. I think I was the only one not crying. And I don't know if maybe it just hasn't hit me yet."

How did your boat hold up?

"My boat held up pretty well. I was a little disappointed in how she held up, but when I look at the other competitors and what it actually takes to go around the world, she did great. And I think maybe I'm just a perfectionist in that kind of way. I don't want things to break. I felt like we were going through things too quickly. The last couple of days my team and I have been dedicated to looking at what is broken and taking the whole boat apart."

What did break?

"Oh god, do you want the list? I think the majority was actually electrical. Saltwater is just horrible for electronics, and your electronics are waterproof with freshwater, not saltwater. The salt is just really good at corroding and killing everything."

Tell us about the route and what the hardest spot was for you?

"You leave from Acuña, Spain, and you travel south and then you navigate through the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, which is off of Africa. And then you go across the equator, there's a couple of islands off of Brazil. You go through those and then you take a left turn to go and start your Cape [of Good Hope] journey. To be honest, that whole area inside the Southern Ocean—you have the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and each individual one is so different because of the currents, because of the wind, the waves, and how close each of these oceans is to the land. And so each have their own struggles. I think no sailor out there will disagree that the Southern Oceans are by far the most challenging."

You must have learned a lot about the weather, weather patterns, wind patterns.

"100%. I had a very good team behind me. My weather router, Chelsea, sent a 10-year historical analysis about the Southern Oceans to me about three weeks before the start of the race, so I read her entire booklet. She sends me where she thinks that the breeze is going to be coming from, and then I have to decide on what sails to use, and how big the sails should be that I'm going to use, and where I'm going to go. We talked every single day. My team was like, 'Okay, we trust that your eyes are seeing this firsthand and you're going to make the right decisions for how big the seas are and how windy it is.'"

How did you stay on course?

"I, of course, have like an autopilot system that’s driving at all times, because the autopilot can drive perfectly 100% of the time, where I can drive perfectly for maybe 10 minutes. On the ocean, autopilots are 100% necessary and almost every boat has them. It's just not really possible to drive all night long and there's no place to just pull over and park. A lot of the technology is programmable, so you have a PC and you're constantly programming it for the specific conditions. And I'm not a video game geek, so I struggle with that, but everything has a manual. If you can read a manual, you can sail."

You’re on Instagram, and I read that you began with the goal of having maybe 10,000 people following you around the world. I think you're at about  500,000 followers now on Instagram. You were posting a lot during this trip. I understand some of your sponsors weren’t necessarily happy about that. Why did you decide to do it?

"I had it in my mind that if you wanted to make this important, people had to see it. You know, there's one thing to go around the world and there's another thing to actually show the world what you're doing, and show the sport that is so obscure and that people don't really know about. Exposing myself on to social media didn't seem like that crazy to me and to an older generation it did."

Are you hoping to inspire young people to try things, to sail, to do something adventurous?

"Yeah, of course. I have a protegé. I started working with her when she was 15, and I think she's now 17 going to be 18. She flew all the way from Connecticut to Spain just to see my finish. I look at her and, you know, her friends, and anyone else that I've spoken to about this and I’m at the forefront of this campaign, but it's the people behind me that have been lifting me up the entire time. My advice to anyone is keep those friends that really respect you and understand your dreams and want to be a part of it. Find the people that are willing to participate in your dreams and don't laugh at you or think that you're crazy, because when you actually get the opportunity, you want to have some people in your corner."

Julia Corcoran  produced and edited this interview for broadcast with  Todd Mundt . Corcoran also adapted it for the web.

This segment aired on March 14, 2024.

Scott Tong Co-Host, Here & Now Scott Tong joined Here & Now as a co-host in July 2021 after spending 16 years at Marketplace as Shanghai bureau chief and senior correspondent.

Julia Corcoran Producer, Here & Now Julia Corcoran is an associate producer for Here & Now.

More from Here & Now

Cole Brauer becomes first American woman to sail solo, nonstop around world

A joyful Cole Brauer returned in her boat Thursday to A Coruña, 130 days after sailing away from the Spanish port city.

Completing the epic voyage made the 29-year-old the first American woman to sail around the world nonstop, with no one else aboard. Brauer’s solo feat, which unfolded over approximately 30,000 miles, was also good for a second-place finish in rigorous Global Solo Challenge.

“Amazing finish!!!! So stoked!” Brauer wrote on Instagram. “Thank you to everyone that came together and made this process possible.”

Brauer provided regular updates on her voyage, which began Oct. 29, as her Instagram following burgeoned from less than 100,000 to almost half a million. Along the way, the East Hampton, N.Y., native shared battles with high winds, monstrous waves and maintenance issues on her Class 40 monohull, named “First Light.”

The 5-2, 100-pound sailor, who learned to sail at the University of Hawaii, posted clips of herself getting bruised ribs when suddenly flung across the interior of her boat and self-administering fluids intravenously to ward off dehydration. Her journey took her around the three great capes — Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Australia’s Cape Leeuwin and South America’s treacherous Cape Horn — and through Point Nemo, an area in the Pacific Ocean so far from any land that the nearest humans are often orbiting overhead in the International Space Station.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by COLE BRAUER OCEAN RACING (@colebraueroceanracing)

According to race organizer Marco Nannini, over half of the 16 entrants in this installment of the event have had to retire before completing it. One passed a kidney stone at sea, per Nannini, before making landfall in New Zealand for medical assistance, and another was semi-submerged and out of contact for “24 very long hours prior to rescue” after a collision in the remote Pacific.

Brauer joins a group of fewer than 200 people known to have sailed solo around the world without stopping. The first, according to a list maintained by the International Association of Cape Horners , was England’s Robin Knox-Johnston in 1969.

The first woman to accomplish the feat, per Nannini, was Australia’s Kay Cottee in 1988. Brauer is the 18th.

“It was a long and emotional day,” Nannini wrote Thursday, “which started well before sunrise after a sleepless night monitoring Cole’s progress, meeting her at sea, watching her sail at First Light into A Coruna and celebrating her outstanding achievement. Well done Cole!”

Brauer was the youngest competitor in the Global Solo Challenge field — and the only woman. Of making her mark in a “fully male-dominated world,” as she put it in a recent interview with NBC , Brauer said, “I think that it takes a lot of strength to actually push and to strive into this industry, and I really want women to understand that it’s possible.”

“It would be amazing if there was just one other girl that saw me and said, ‘Oh, I can do that, too,’” she said .

She had lived a life of adventure. Then came the ultimate sailing race.

Last year, Brauer won the opening leg of the One-Two Yacht Race , which involved sailing solo from Rhode Island to Bermuda. All competitors picked up a second sailor for the return trip, and Brauer finished first again with teammate Catherine Chimney as they became the first all-female duo to win the race overall.

Each leg of that competition took approximately three days, barely a toe in the water compared to the duration of Brauer’s just-completed circumnavigation, but the first three days of the Global Solo Challenge were some of the hardest for her. She endured a “ pretty rough, rough, rough start ” making her way around the Spanish coast after departing A Coruña, an experience she described on Instagram as a “trial by fire.”

The second day of the event began with Brauer vomiting — “I’ve never had seasickness before in my life,” she told her followers, adding that she may have suffered from food poisoning — and shortly thereafter she gave herself the IV on the advice of her medical team.

Brauer shared plenty of posts in her usually upbeat demeanor, but a Dec. 8 video found her “ angry that things keep going wrong” with her boat. “Right now, I have been feeling just broken,” Brauer said with emotion. But she was smiling at the camera the next day while engaging in some “ self care ” as some technical issues got ironed out.

By Christmas Eve , Brauer was past Cape Leeuwin, close to the halfway point of the journey as she began the long, challenging stretch across the Pacific. After dodging some strong weather systems and enduring others, she passed Cape Horn and was finally back in the Atlantic in late January. Of course, there were still some “ horrendous conditions ” to deal with, but Brauer also shared excitement about the media coverage her exploits were attracting.

“So excited to move sailing into the mainstream!” Brauer wrote on Instagram late last month. “For far too long sailing and racing has been in the shadows maybe partially due to its attempts to keep its ‘traditions’ but those ‘traditions’ have also pushed really amazing sailors out of the industry due to burn out rates and unnecessary exclusivity. This hasn’t been easy one bit but it makes it all worth it to see that we are taking this industry from the dark and bringing it into the light.”

After making her long-awaited return to dry land, she told NBC , “It was really emotional, because I see my parents, I see my friends, my family — I see everyone — and this dream has become a reality.”

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Meet the fearless women sailors taking on the ‘Everest of the seas’

These skippers are aiming to make record time in pro sailing’s most challenging solo round-the-world race.

British skipper Miranda Merron, 51, trains aboard Campagne de France for the Vendée Globe 2020, an around-the-world solo sailing race. She’s one of six women competing this year.

Monstrous waves, collisions with whales, capsized boats in the middle of nowhere. The threats are real in the Vendée Globe, the sailing world’s most challenging race, in which competitors must single-handedly navigate around the world—without stopping.

Known as “the Everest of the seas,” the Vendée Globe is an extreme test of physical and psychological endurance in the face of primal nature, the journey averaging 26,000 nautical miles and three months. Those who finish are rewarded with worldwide acclaim. But the ultimate prize is to beat the record of 74 days set by Armel Le Cléac’h in the 2016-2017 edition.

Among the 33 skippers who set sail on November 8 are six women—the most in the race’s history. The oldest is 51-year-old Miranda Merron , while the youngest is 30-year-old Clarisse Crémer . Only 46-year-old Samantha (Sam) Davies is a Vendée Globe veteran—this edition will be her third attempt at the trophy.

Participants begin and end the Vendée Globe from Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. Along the way, they face challenges from house-sized waves to icebergs.

A woman has never won, though some have come close. Ellen MacArthur ended up in second place in the 2000-2001 edition, a day later than that year’s champ. Davies just missed the podium, coming in fourth in the 2008-2009 race.

This year, these fearless captains are presenting a serious challenge for their male counterparts. “It is a great sign of the evolution of gender equality in professional sailing,” explains Davies, of the number of women competing in the 2020 edition. “I have a lot of respect for the other five women—they’re all amazing, experienced sailors.”

( Related: Set sail with these 10 books about epic ocean voyages .)

A high seas obstacle course

Since it launched in 1989, the Vendée Globe has become the holy grail of the sailing world. Completing the treacherous race, which runs every four years, is an accomplishment in its own right. Only 89 of the 167 sailors who have entered the contest have crossed the finish line.

On this oceanic odyssey, the route starts and ends at Les Sables-d’Olonne on France ’s Atlantic coast and follows in the wake of the early navigators who sailed through the three storied Great Capes (Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, Australia ’s Cape Leeuwin, and South America ’s Cape Horn). From the Bay of Biscay, the skippers harness the power of the trade winds to the Equator, where they brave the windless waters of the doldrums. Then they head as far south as possible in pursuit of the fastest path around the globe.

Competitors sail high-tech boats that can reach speeds of up to 30 knots. Here, British skipper Samantha Davies, 46, helms the Initiatives-Coeur during a training session near the race’s starting point.

The most daunting stretch is the Southern Ocean surrounding the coast of Antarctica . Here, the skippers must battle tempest-ravaged seas, house-sized swells, and icebergs—the race organizers actually set an “Antarctic Exclusion Zone” so that the racers stay north of dangerous ice areas. “I’ve never seen another vessel. There’s nobody,” says Merron, who’s been there three times in other contests.

Once the skippers skirt New Zealand , they are at the point farthest removed from any geographic landmass, farthest away from any kind of help in the event of a disaster. The hazards are infinite. Traveling at speeds of up to 30 knots, the boat can hit a wave so hard “it’s like a car crash,” Crémer explains, potentially hurling a skipper overboard. Often the closest assistance is in the form of a competitor: Sam Davies was one of the skippers diverted during the 2008­­–2009 race to help Yann Eliès, after he broke his pelvis and leg in a horrific Indian Ocean accident.

Stories like Eliès’s are not uncommon. Some have gone down in legend. In 1993, Bertrand de Broc bit off his tongue when a loose rope hit him square in the face. He used a needle and thread to sew it back together, guided by physician instructions delivered via telex, a World War II-era precursor to the fax machine. In the 2000–2001 race, the mast on Yves Parlier’s boat broke off, or “dismasted”—a devastating situation for sailors—in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Samantha Davies trains for the 2020 race. Sailors spend an average of three months alone at sea, sleeping in 20-minute intervals.

Parlier managed to rebuild his rig, scavenging materials from his boat and in the flotsam surrounding Stewart Island, where he anchored off New Zealand. But then he faced a bigger challenge: running out of food. He survived on fish and seaweed—flavored with dried soup packets and washed down with a little red wine—and managed to complete the race after 126 days. (But Parlier didn’t arrive last! Though the winner, Michel Desjoyeaux, crossed the finish line after 93 days, two skippers placed after Parlier.)

They were lucky. The race has also been marked by tragedy—two competitors were lost at sea in the 1992–1993 edition.

It’s been a half-millennium since Ferdinand Magellan first circumnavigated the earth. Like the legendary Portuguese explorer on his epic quest, the Vendée Globe’s skippers are sometimes reduced to living in animal-like conditions: sleeping in 20-minute intervals, crawling around on hands and knees, avoiding concussions. But the food’s better; Crémer has a 90-day stock that includes duck pâté, chocolate, and flavorful dehydrated meals, while Merron has 100 days’ worth of tea and a freeze-dried Christmas feast.

Mind over matter

Besides the physical hardships, the mental strain can be immense. Decision-making is hampered by sleep deprivation; emotions are amplified. “For the first 24 hours, you hallucinate there’s someone else on board,” jokes Merron. “The wind’s picking up and you’re wondering why the other person isn’t dealing with the sails.”

How do the competitors endure the seclusion, exhaustion, and stress? How do they confront fear aboard their 60-foot boats? Managing sleep is a crucial component of the race, with some skippers working with university researchers to fine-tune their strategies. “The rule is: You just sleep whenever you can,” explains Merron. “You have to be on watch. The radar has an alarm but conditions [on the ocean] change all the time.”

Clarisse Crémer, 30, on Banque Populaire X tacks across a wave. In the Vendée Globe, skippers must complete the race on their own.

Crémer combats the stress through yoga and sophrology, the breathing and meditation practice. In past outings, she found an outlet by making social media videos from her boat, conveying humor and infectious enthusiasm in her footage. She continued filming this year, when the pandemic lockdown in France prevented skippers from training on the water. She recorded elaborate recreations of life at sea, clad in foul weather gear, miming the motions, while her companion hurled buckets of water at her.

( Related: Here’s why planning a trip can help your mental health .)

The camera has become a psychological tool to help Crémer brave not just the race’s extreme conditions, but also the unknown pitfalls. Crémer insists that you can’t think of the overall, big-picture challenge. “In French we have an expression: A chaque jour suffit sa peine, ” she says, which translates as: “Each day has enough trouble of its own. Take it day by day.” “When you have a goal that’s really hard to attain, it’s imperative to move forward step by step. Concentrate on a smaller task, a smaller, achievable goal.”

Merron looks at the dangers with practicality. “I have a saying, if nothing’s gone wrong in a 24-hour period, you have to be wary.” But she’s looking forward to the freedom, away from the Internet, “being on the ocean, exploring the last places on earth that mankind hasn’t completely sullied … Though there’s so much rubbish floating in the sea.”

The biggest fear for Davies is not finishing the race. In 2012 she dismasted and had no choice but to cut free the rigging to save her boat from sinking. “Failure is the other side of adventure,” she says.

French skipper Clarisse Crémer enjoys a stress-free moment on her Banque Populaire X sailboat. The Vendée Globe is as much a mental test as it is a physical one.

Pioneering women

Physical strength and mental fortitude are important foundations, but these women have wind in their sails thanks to those who came before them. “My mum sent me to a talk by Dame Naomi James when I was nine and I was absolutely enthralled,” Merron says of the first woman to have sailed single-handed around the world via the Cape Horn route in 1978.

( Related: Travel through time with 21 women explorers who changed the world .)

As an adult, Merron sailed with a then 23-year-old Davies on Maiden under Tracy Edwards, who had recruited the first all-women crew to attempt the Jules Verne Trophy, a prize for the fastest circumnavigation. “The reason why I’m here is Tracy Edwards,” says Davies. “She was not only my hero, but she also opened so many doors for women in sports. A younger me, when I watched her race, never would’ve imagined that one day I’d be on her crew.”

The first women to participate in the Vendée Globe were Isabelle Autissier and Catherine Chabaud, renowned French navigators and ocean racers. Pummeled by gales, the 1996–1997 race was a saga of disaster and tragedy. Yet Chabaud placed sixth (140 days). (Autissier crossed the finish line but was disqualified because of a stop in Cape Town to repair a damaged rudder. She had turned around in a storm to search for competing Canadian skipper Gerry Roufs, lost at sea and presumed dead.)

Sam Davies on Initiatives-Coeur near Lorient, France, not far from the race’s starting point. The record to beat in the 2020 race is 74 days, but it can take over 100 days to complete the Vendée Globe.

Four years later Ellen MacArthur clinched second place in the Vendée Globe. The 24-year-old British skipper nearly caught Michel Desjoyeaux, who beat her by a single day (93 days). “To see her race was really interesting,” explains Crémer of one of her role models, “she’s not exactly a tall person with big muscles!”

It was a different century altogether when a woman first dared take up the challenge of beating the circumnavigation record of Phileas Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days . Nellie Bly was a 19th-century investigative journalist who invented a new kind of “stunt reporting” when she had herself admitted as a patient to a women’s insane asylum in order to expose the terrible conditions there. Her articles sold newspapers, with her name soon promoted in the headline itself. Hungry for maritime adventure, she convinced her editor at New York World to sponsor the trip, via steamship and train, which she accomplished in 72 days, a world record in 1890.

Her voyage—filled with jolly captains, a pet monkey, and even a visit with Verne himself—is far from the perilous, solitude-enforced Vendée Globe. But her perseverance, ambition, and spirit—only traveling with one dress to minimize luggage, charming the smallpox quarantine doctor in San Francisco harbor—conjures present-day adventurers. Bly’s published telegrams mesmerized the public, alongside the newspaper’s contest for readers to guess at her trip progress. Her one regret, she wrote later, was that “in my hasty departure I forgot to take a Kodak.”

The Vendée Globe competitors won’t forget their cameras. They record their adventures with humor and wit, using today’s communication channels: video and social media. Samantha Davies famously shot a video of herself dancing to Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” as she sailed into the Northern Hemisphere in the 2008–2009 race. On a previous solo transatlantic crossing, Crémer lip-synced to a medley of French and English pop hits.

“With the current pandemic situation, with less entertainment and canceled events, we sense that spectators are keen to follow us this year,” explains Davies. “And that is a huge motivation.”

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Ny skipper cole brauer overcame broken ribs, deteriorating boat to become first us woman to sail solo around the world.

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She sailed her way into the history books. 

A 29-year-old skipper from New York has become the first US woman to sail solo around the world.

Cole Brauer, from Long Island, tearfully reunited with her family in A Coruña, Spain, on Thursday after a gruelling 30,000-mile journey that took 130 days.

The 5-foot-2 trailblazer placed second out of 16 in the daring Global Solo Challenge, which kicked off in October off the coast of the port city, located in northwestern Spain.

“I can’t believe it guys. I sailed around the world,” Brauer said as she approached the finish line in an Instagram live video. “That’s crazy. That’s absolutely crazy. This is awesome. Let’s just do it again. Let’s keep going!”

She was the only woman in the event and also the youngest competitor. She sailed into A Coruña to a cheering crowd just a day before International Women’s Day on March 8.

“It would be amazing if there was just one girl that saw me and said, ‘Oh, I can do that too,’” Brauer  told NBC  of her history-making effort. More than half of the other competitors has dropped out as of Thursday.

Brauer’s  sailing profile on Global Solo Challenge’s website  said her goal has always been to be “the First American Woman to Race Around the World.”

“With this goal, I hope to show that this very male-dominated sport and community can become more open and less ‘traditional,'” it reads.

The East Hampton native didn’t even take up sailing until she decamped to the University of Hawai’i for college in 2014, her profile explained.

“I grew up on a nature preserve, wandering through the tall grass of the creek and playing in the mud watching the tide come in,” she said of her childhood in Suffolk County.

“When I moved to Hawaii for university, all I wanted was to get out on the water. Feel at home. Accessing the sailing community in Hawaii was the logical step,” she added.

Brauer turned pro after college, and started seriously chasing the idea of a round-the-world race after her mentor, Tim Fetsch, sent her a book by record-setting female skipper Dame Ellen MacArthur.

By the time she set sail on her global adventure on Oct. 29, Brauer was already a record-setter: Last summer, she became the first woman to win the Bermuda One-Two race, the Providence Journal reported at the time.

Brauer documented the treacherous Global Solo Challenge for her 459,000 Instagram followers from aboard her beloved 40-foot monohull racing boat, First Light.

Like her pint-sized, 100-pound owner, First Light has a quicksilver edge – and is only large enough to typically hold a one- or two-person crew.

The race path took Brauer down the western coast of Africa before she sailed into the Southern Ocean in early December, where she’d cement second place in the challenge.

She often showed fans her peaceful mornings and on-board workout sessions in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Cole wants to prove you can go around the world and watch Netflix every once in a while, and wear your pajamas,” her media manager, Lydia Mullan,  told the New York Times  of the realistic look at boat life.

“As for her mental health, she’s really creating a space in her routine for herself, to create that joy she hasn’t seen in other sailors,” Mullan added.

But even Brauer’s tenacious outlook at times gave way for the hardships of living at sea.

In December, she suffered a rib injury when she was violently thrown across her boat because of broaching — when a boat unintentionally changes direction toward the wind — in the rough waters near Africa. 

Despite the injury, Brauer said she had no other choice but to power through the pain and keep sailing.

“There’s no option at that point. You’re so far away from land that there’s no one who can rescue you or come and grab you,” she told the “Today” show Thursday. “You kind of just need to keep moving along and keep doing everything.”

Brauer’s grit during the journey recalled her time in Hawaii, when she borrowed from her background as a varsity soccer player, track and field runner, and cheerleader to thrive on the UH team — all while juggling her studies in nutrition science and a full-time job. 

“It’s more strategy than anything,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in May 2016, when she captained the four-time national championship-qualifying team.

Brauer told NBC on Sunday that solo sailors “have to be able to do everything.”

“You have to be able to get up even when you’re so exhausted and you have to be able to fix everything on the boat.”

She reached the Pacific Ocean on December 29 and traveled past the southernmost point of South America and back into the Atlantic on January 27.

As she missed the holidays back home, Brauer decorated First Light with decorations fit for the occasion — pumpkins and ghosts for Halloween, a small felt Christmas tree, and broke out a dress and champagne for New Year’s Day. 

Brauer also told the outlet that she started to feel the boat “deteriorating” and “starting to break down” as she made her final push through the Atlantic. 

She then deliberately slowed her arrival time near the finish line to coordinate with the “first light” — when light is first seen in the morning — in honor of her boat’s namesake.

“I’m glad that out of all times, I’m coming in at first light,” Brauer said. “It’s only necessary.”

As she crossed the finish line, Brauer held two flares above her head to signal an end to her over four-month-long campaign.

“Amazing finish!!!! So stoked! Thank you to everyone that came together and made this process possible,” she wrote on Instagram.

Following her second-place finish, Brauer received a fresh cappuccino and croissant, the breakfast she had been craving for months while at sea, she said.

French skipper Philippe Delamare, who started the race a month before Brauer, won the Global Solo Challenge on Feb. 24. Start dates were staggered based on performance characteristics.

A highlight of Brauer’s return to dry land will be reuniting with her mom, dad, and younger sister.

“They think I’m nuts,” Brauer told the Providence Journal of her parents’ response to her big sailing dream.

“I think that they’re much more proud of me now, especially because they’re starting to realize that this 10-year adventure I’ve been on isn’t just me gallivanting around the world…not really fulfilling what my mind and body was made to do, which is what my parents always wanted me to do,” she added.

Now, Brauer is joining a storied lineage of esteemed female skippers who came before her.

Polish skipper Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz was the first woman to sail solo around the world, traveling almost 36,000 miles from 1976 to 1978. 

British sailor Ellen MacArthur became the fastest solo sailor to sail around the world in 2005 when she traveled over 31,000 miles in 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes 33 seconds.

Brauer hopes to serve as the same inspiration as the sailing pioneers. 

“I push so much harder when someone is like, ‘you can’t do that.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, watch me,’” she told NBC. “It would be amazing if there was one other girl who saw me and said, “Oh, I can do that too.”

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Philippe Delamare won the Global Solo Challenge after sailing non-stop around the world for just ... [+] over 147 days!

You’ve probably never heard of The Global Solo Challenge that began when dozens of solo sailors departed A Coruña, Spain on budget-friendly, environmentally conscious boats last August. So, you probably had no clue that Frenchman Philippe Delamare just “won” the race to be the first competitor to complete a solo-non-stop-circumnavigation of the world by the three great capes after spending an incredible 147 days at sea. And you probably had no idea that he finished the race as a winter storm battered the Spanish coast where the fleet started from back in August either.

Cole Brauer is in second place in the Global Solo Challenge

But now you do. The truth is, the Global Solo Challenge is way more than “just” another long-distance sailboat race. And the 29-year-old American woman Cole Brauer (who’s currently in second place) is way more than just another sailboat racer. In fact, she has less than 2,000 miles to go. And every mile she sails brings her closer to becoming the first American female in history to complete a solo, nonstop, circumnavigation by the three great capes. And if all goes well, she’ll enter an elite club of less than 200 sailors who have accomplished the same feat.

And if you happen to be looking for a pure-feel-good-escape-story to provide a welcome distraction from your normal social media doom-scrolling, I highly recommend following her progress @colebraueroceanracing as she sails the final 1,500 miles north to the finish line.

19-year-old Cole Brauer is in second place in the Global Solo Challenge

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Here’s just a sample of the pure humanity from her Instagram feed. “Starting to cool down as I get further north! Seaweed has died down. Wind has picked up. Seastate is going further to the beam so slightly less slammy! Things are looking up! These 10 days to the finish are going to be incredibly tough but trying to appreciate every single day I have left!”

Her valentines day post speaks for itself. “This Valentines Day I am dedicating it to all the dream chasing, scream singing, grab life by the throat bada$$ women who never fit into the cookie cutter type of flowers and a box of chocolates. Cheers to all of you🧡”

And here, Cole draws the attention of her 419,000 instagram followers to an organization that means a lot to her. “Thank you so much for the people who have already donated into @safesailorg. I can’t thank you enough 🙏 One of my passions is shaping a positive and inclusive culture in the Sport of Sailing. Let’s work together to make our sailing community a safe and respectful space for everyone.”

But her story is just one of many from this wonderfully approachable event that reminds me that the world is bigger, and more exciting, and more inspiring than we often see on the mainstream media in an election year!

Ronnie Simpson's entry in the Global Solo Challenge was dismasted in the southern ocean

American Ronnie Simpson had rounded cape Horn and was ¾’s the way around the world when he suffered a dismasting in the notoriously dangerous southern ocean. And while he was heartbroken to retire from the race—and be rescued from his damaged boat—he also is a wonderful example of grit, determination, and human endurance that this wonderfully adventurous event brings out of competitors and inspires in fans.

Simpson with some of the crew that rescued him in the Southern Ocean.

“I was trying to slow the boat down, but given our reachy angle she wanted to go hull speed (9 knots) even under storm sails. Down below on my bunk, I anxiously stared at an instrument display and watched our numbers and navigation – popping up frequently to make trim and course adjustments – when we launched off of a wave. Sailing over a crossed-up triangular launch ramp in 30 gusting 40 knot winds, Shipyard Brewing launched hard off a wave. I felt it down below and grabbed the sides of my bunk to brace for the upcoming impact. Bang. Shipyard Brewing slammed down and a split-second later I heard some bad noises on deck and the boat began to flatten out. Something had clearly let go”

He's been dismasted and that ended the race for him. But I’m pretty sure this in not the end of his solo racing career. “Starting with an old, funky boat and no money, I managed to get to the starting line and become a viable American contender in a solo around the world race,” he said in his final blog post. “I fought for the win for the first half and fought for a podium the second half, before dismasting more than 3/4 of the way around the world and after the three Capes. I had a road map back to Europe and was looking at 3rd, or at worst, 4th place out of 16 starters and some 60 original entries.”

Go, Global Solo Challenge, Go!

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Kirsten Neuschafer wins 2022 Golden Globe Race and makes history

• Katy Stickland
• April 27, 2023

Kirsten Neuschafer has become the first woman to win a solo, round the world yacht race after winning the 2022 Golden Globe Race

Kirsten Neuschafer made it very clear from the start that she was aiming to win the 2022 Golden Globe Race . And now the South African skipper has achieved her goal, and made history in the process.

After just over 235 days at sea, the sailor crossed the finish line off Les Sables d’Olonne in France at 9pm CEST on 27 April 2023 and became the first woman to win a solo, round the world yacht race.

After a painfully slow final few miles as she ghosted towards the finish, Neuschafer actually crossed the finish line around 10 hours behind competitor, Simon Curwen, but a previous stop for repairs for the British sailor had already relegated him to the Chichester class (for those who make a single landfall).

No wind, meant it took hours for Kirsten Neuschafer to sail the Minnehaha over the finish line. Credit: Katy Stickland

Second-time Golden Globe Race competitor, Abhilash Tomy will be the next boat across the finish line, lying some 100nm astern of Neuschafer. That these three will finish within the space of a couple of days after 235 days at sea speaks to the high level of competition between these front runners.

Tired but jubilant, the focussed 39-year-old, who throughout much of the race had no idea she was leading, celebrated a hard-fought victory. Her Cape George 36 cutter, Minnehaha was then towed up the channel to the pontoon as thousands of people cheered and applauded her incredible achievement.

Among them were 2022 Golden Globe Race skippers Ian Herbert-Jones, who had just arrived from Cape Town, having been rescued from his dismasted boat just weeks before, and French sailor Damien Guillou , whose race ended after windvane steering failure on approach to Cape Town.

‘I feel very emotional and honoured,’ said Neuschafer after finishing the race. ‘I am never going to forget the welcome. I want to thank my fellow skippers as without them, there would have been no race. Simon was very difficult as he was always in front of me and I knew Abhilash was close, and this encouraged me to navigate as quickly as possible.’

Kirsten Neuschafer – the winner of the 2022 Golden Globe Race and the first woman to win a solo round the world yacht race. Credit: Katy Stickland

1997 Vendée Globe veteran Catherine Chabaud, the first female sailor to race solo non stop around the world without assistance, and the winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Race, Jean-Luc van den Heede, were there to greet Neuschafer as she stepped off her boat after nearly 8 months at sea.

Her official finishing time was 233 days, 20 hours, 43 minutes and 47 seconds. This takes into account the 35 hour time compensation and 30 litre fuel allowance given to her following her role in the rescue of fellow race skipper, Tapio Lehtinen,

Neuschafer said she was driven to keep going, even in calms and the doldrums on the way up the Atlantic, where she regularly went swimming to deal with the frustration.

‘I never thought I would give up; there was no reason to think this as I had full confidence in the boat. I never doubted I would get to the finish line.’

Catherine Chabaud, the first female sailor to race solo non stop around the world without assistance was there to greet Kirsten Neuschafter on. her arrival. Credit: Katy Stickland

Throughout the 2022 Golden Globe Race , Kirsten Neuschafer has fought to be at the front of the fleet, her ambition to win driving her more than many of the other entrants.

She deliberately chose a boat that she believed could win the race and survive the Southern Ocean.

Speaking to Yachting Monthly from Prince Edward Island, where she was refitting the boat, she said: ‘From the outset it wasn’t a question of taking any boat that was available and in my price range; it was to choose a boat that I believe can win and can survive the Southern Ocean , and then get that boat at any cost, no matter how much work.’

Kirsten Neuschafer in the lead, in early March 2023. Credit: Kirsten Neuschafer/GGR 2022

Her choice of the Cape George 36 paid off. Minnehaha has the longest LWL in the fleet, and with a generous cutter rigged 806sq ft sail plan, the boat achieved slightly higher speeds than her counterparts.

As a result, she holds the 2022 Golden Globe Race records for the best 4 hour speed average (9.80 knots), best 24 hour distance (218.9nm) and best 7 day distance (1,216.2nm).

The boat’s performance was evident after her average start in the race, but she constantly pushed, choosing to hand steer the boat rather than just rely on her Hydrovane windvane steering to make up for lost ground. Her disappointment coming 6th through the first race gate at Lanzarote was evident, but her motivation was stronger.

Kirsten Neuschafer prepared Minnehaha on Prince Edward Island. Credit: Patricia Richard

Having exited the Bay of Biscay in 10th place, she was soon climbing the leader board. Coming down the Atlantic, she chose a more coastal route to keep the island of Trinidade to port; a strategy to make the most of the current and receive weather information via her weather fax so she could identify the location of the South Atlantic High.

She took the longer, southern route with a more comfortable point of sail to reach the race’s second gate at Cape Town; a strategy that paid off when she was second through the gate behind the then race leader Simon Curwen .

Article continues below…

Kirsten Neuschafer: Golden Globe Race 2022 skipper

Kirsten Neuschafer has plenty of Southern Ocean experience, which she hopes will be an advantage as she takes part in…

Golden Globe Race: Kirsten Neuschafer: ‘I’ll give it my best shot but I’m pretty disillusioned’

Third place Golden Globe Race skipper Kirsten Neuschafer has been left frustrated by the lack of wind, which has also…

By this time, Curwen was extending his lead as he began crossing the Indian Ocean. Days after leaving Cape Town, Kirsten Neuschafer diverted from her race route to rescue fellow entrant Tapio Lehtinen, after his Gaia 36, Asteria sank around 450 miles south east of South Africa.

At the time, Neuschafer was 105 miles from Lehtinen’s position; she hand steered through the night, posting speeds of 7 knots to reach him the following morning. Once safely onboard, they waited for the arrival of the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier Darya Gayatri , which would take Lehtinen to port.

Kirsten Neuschafer and Tapio Lehtinen share rum after the rescue of the Finnish skipper from his liferaft. Credit: Kirsten Nesuchafer/GGR 2022

Neuschafer was awarded a 35 hour time compensation and a 30 litre fuel allowance by the Golden Globe Race organisers.

Back in race mode, she pushed hard across the Indian Ocean, gaining 500 miles on Curwen and arrived just 29.5 hours behind him in Hobart. She briefly took first place when passing through Tasmania but then became trapped in no wind zones around New Zealand for several days.

This allowed Curwen to extend his lead by 900 miles; by this time, he was also sailing in a different weather system to Neuschafer and her nearest rival, Abhilash Tomy .

Neuschafer and Tomy swapped second and third place positions across the South Pacific, Neuschafer often frustrated by the calms, and her inability to find the better wind, which was often in the race’s Pacific exclusion zone.

She dived for 8 hours to remove the barnacles from the boat’s hull to improve her speed.

Kirsten Neuschafer/ rounded Cape Horn on Day 164 of the race. Credit: Kirsten Neuschafer/GGR 2022

Curwen, who had a 1,200 mile lead, then reported the failure of his Hydrovane self-steering gear , which forced him to make a 1,000 mile detour to Chile to make repairs; this also put him in the Chichester Class for entrants who make one stop.

This meant both Neuschafer and Tomy were back in the race for first place.

After 150 days of racing, Neuschafer took the lead and was the first to round Cape Horn on 15 February 2023.

But her routing decision up the Atlantic allowed Tomy to make gains in his Rustler 36, Bayanat , despite battling problems with his Wind Pilot windvane steering, his rig, rigging, and having to hand-stitch his mainsail after it ripped in two.

Kirsten Neuschafer took a more easterly route up the Atlantic. Credit: Kirsten Neuschäfer/GGR2022

Unlike Tomy, who stayed close to the rhumb line, Kirsten Neuschafer, who was sailing more conservatively due to a bend in Minehaha’s bowsprit, decided to take a more easterly route.

At the time she said: ‘I read up in  Ocean Passages for the World what is the best route for this time of year and the route is to pass 80 miles south of the Falklands and make for a point to the east of 35°S and 30°W at this time of year, and this is what I’ve been doing. I don’t know if it was a good idea to follow the suggestions or not.’

Doubting her easterly route, she took a more northerly route; it was a decision which would prove incredibly frustrating for Kirsten Neuschafer, who sailed through more light winds than any other 2022 Golden Globe Race sailor while sailing up the Atlantic, and meant she crossed a very wide doldrums.

This allowed both Tomy and Curwen to make gains on her position before Curwen in his Biscay 36, Clara , took the lead and become the first of the 2022 Golden Globe Race fleet to cross the finish line.

Positions of the Golden Globe Race 2022 skippers on 27 April 2022 at 2100 CEST

Kirsten Neuschafer, (South Africa), Cape George 36 cutter, Minnehaha – FINISHED 1st Abhilash Tomy , (India), Rustler 36, Bayanat – 100nm to the finish Michael Guggenberger , (Austria), Biscay 36, Nuri – 1800nm to the finish

Chichester Class:

Simon Curwen , (UK), Biscay 36, Clara – FINISHED 1st (Chichester Class) Jeremy Bagshaw , (South Africa), OE32, Olleanna – 2600nm to the finish

Edward Walentynowicz , (Canada), Rustler 36, Noah’s Jest Guy deBoer , (USA), Tashiba 36, Spirit Mark Sinclair (Australia), Lello 34, Coconut Pat Lawless , (Ireland), Saltram Saga 36 , Green Rebel Damien Guillou , (France), Rustler 36, PRB Ertan Beskardes , (UK), Rustler 36, Lazy Otter Tapio Lehtinen , (Finland), Gaia 36, Asteria Arnaud Gaist , (France), Barbican 33 Mk 2, Hermes Phoning Elliot Smith ,  (USA), Gale Force 34, Second Wind Guy Waites (UK), Tradewind 35, Sagarmatha Ian Herbert-Jones (UK), Tradewind 35, Puffin

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See what it’s like to sail solo at full throttle

Vendee globe highlights.

Watch some of the best moments from the Vendee Globe solo round-the-world sailing race.

The Vendee Globe started in Les Sables d’Olonne

© Jean-Marie Liot/DPPI/Vendee Globe

Alan Roura of La Fabrique sailing alone

© Alan Roura/La Fabrique/Vendee Globe

Banque Popular spotted off Cape Verde from a plane

© Marine Nationale/Vendee Globe

Heading south to the Southern Ocean

© Bertrand de Broc/MACSF/Vendee Globe

This is the most remote place on Planet Earth

These waves are the mountains of the sea, watch these boats catch some serious waves, this crew sailed 1062km to bermuda in gnarly seas.

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Alone on the Ocean, With 400,000 Friends

As Cole Brauer sped to the finish of a solo race around the world, she used Instagram to blow up sailing’s elitist image.

Before she could begin the Global Solo Challenge, a nonstop solo race around the world, Cole Brauer had to sail First Light, a 40-foot yacht, from Rhode Island to Spain. Credit... Samuel Hodges

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By Chris Museler

• Published Feb. 29, 2024 Updated March 7, 2024

Video dinner parties, spa days, stuffed animals, favorite hoodies and cozy, colorful fleece blankets. Cole Brauer’s Instagram feed hardly feels like the work of someone racing a 40-foot sailboat around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. But Ms. Brauer, 29, is not an average ocean racer.

In 2022, Ms. Brauer had tried out for another competition, the Ocean Race, which is considered the pinnacle of professional ocean racing. Sailors in that race are highly trained, wear matching foul weather gear and have corporate sponsors. And most of them are men. Ms. Brauer, who had sailed thousands of miles on high performance ocean racing boats, felt she was ready to join their ranks.

But after competing in trials in France, Ms. Brauer was told she was “too short for the Southern Ocean” and was sent on her way.

In spite of her small stature — she stands 5 feet 1 inch — Ms. Brauer rounded Cape Horn, Chile, on Jan. 26, the last of the three great capes of her journey to finish the Global Solo Challenge. It is a feat most of the Ocean Race sailors picked instead of her have never even attempted. And despite being the youngest competitor in the race, she is ranked second overall, just days away from reaching the finish line in A Coruña, Spain.

Along the way, her tearful reports of breakages and failures, awe-struck moments during fiery sunrises, dance parties and “shakas” signs at the end of each video have garnered her a following that has eclipsed any sailor’s or sailing event’s online, even the Ocean Race and the America’s Cup, a prestigious race that is more well known by mainstream audiences.

“I’m so happy to have rounded the Horn,” Ms. Brauer said in a video call from her boat, First Light, after a morning spent sponging out endless condensation and mildew from its bilges. “It feels like Day 1. I feel reborn knowing I’ll be in warmer weather. The depression you feel that no one in the world can fix that. Your house is trying to sink and you can’t stop it.”

Shifting gears, she added, “It’s all getting better.”

Ms. Brauer’s rise in popularity — she has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram — has come as a surprise to her, but her achievements, combined with her bright personality, have struck a chord. And she has set a goal of using her platform to change the image of professional ocean sailing.

“Cole wants to prove you can go around the world and watch Netflix every once in a while and wear your pajamas,” said Lydia Mullan, Ms. Brauer’s media manager. “As for her mental health, she’s really creating a space in her routine for herself, to create that joy she hasn’t seen in other sailors.”

Four months after she began the Global Solo Challenge, a solo, nonstop race around the world featuring sailboats of different sizes, Ms. Brauer is holding strong. Sixteen sailors began the journey and only eight remain on the ocean, with the Frenchman Philippe Delamare having finished first on Feb. 24 after 147 days at sea.

Ms. Brauer, who was more than a week ahead of her next closest competitor as of Thursday morning, is on track to set a speed record for her boat class, and to be the first American woman to complete a solo, nonstop sailing race around the world.

Her Authentic Self

Ms. Brauer has been happy to turn the image of a professional sailor on its head. Competitors in the Ocean Race and the America’s Cup tend to pose for static social media posts with their arms crossed high on their chests, throwing stern glares. Ms. Brauer would rather be more comfortable.

She brought objects like fleece blankets on her journey, despite the additional weight, and said solo sailing has helped give her the freedom to be herself.

“Without those things I would be homesick and miserable,” she said of her supply list. “We need comfort to be human. Doing my nails. Flossing. It’s hard for the general public to reach pro sailors. People stop watching. If you treat people below you, people stop watching.”

Other female sailors have noticed the same disconnect. “The year I did the Vendée Globe, Michel Desjoyeaux didn’t mention that anything went wrong,” Dee Caffari, a mentor of Ms. Brauer’s who has sailed around the world six times, said of that race’s winner. “Then we saw his jobs list after the finish and we realized he was human.”

Ms. Brauer, as her social media followers can attest, is decidedly human.

They have gotten used to her “hangout” clothes and rock-out sessions. Her team produces “Tracker Tuesdays,” where a weather forecaster explains the routes Ms. Brauer chooses and why she uses different sails, and “Shore Team Sunday,” where team members are introduced.

“In the beginning I looked at what she was doing, posting about washing her knickers in bucket and I was like, ‘No! What are you doing?’” Ms. Caffari said. “I’ve been so professional and corporate in my career. She’s been so authentic and taken everyone around the world with her. Cole is that next generation of sailor. They tell their story in a different way and it’s working.”

Finding a Purpose

Ms. Brauer was introduced to sailing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Those days of casual racing on the turquoise waters of Kaneohe Bay informed her vision of an inclusive sailing community. That image was shattered when she came to the mainland to try her hand at professional sailing.

“When I came to the East Coast it was so closed off,” she said of those early experiences. “I couldn’t get a job in the industry. Pro sailors were jaded. They didn’t want anyone to take their job. It’s a gig-based economy. Competition, we’re pinned against each other, especially women in high-performance sailing since there are fewer of us.”

“This whole process of being a pro sailor over the past five years, I feel mentally punched in the face and my legs kicked out from under me,” she added. “I screamed and I cried. Without those experiences I wouldn’t be as mentally tough. It made me callused.”

A big break happened when she landed a gig as boat captain for Michael Hennessy’s successful Class40 Dragon. The boat was a perfect platform to hone her ocean sailing skills as she ripped up and down the East Coast delivering it to races, often alone, pushing Dragon to its limits. Her Instagram posts of those adventures drew attention, and she was invited to tryout for the Ocean Race, a fully crewed race around the world in powerful 65-footers.

“I was crushed,” Ms. Brauer said of being rejected after the trials.

Ms. Brauer, though, found a new purpose. After months of living in her van and working on Dragon, she found a benefactor in F.K. Day, the president of World Bicycle Relief and the executive vice president of SRAM Corporation, who, along with his brother Lincoln, agreed to buy a boat and fund a massive refit for the Global Solo Challenge, which was only three months away.

Conducting the hurricane of activity last summer in Newport, R.I., Ms. Brauer knew this was her moment to shine. But representatives for her new sponsors had reservations about her bold social media experiment.

“I got a massive pushback: ‘How can you be so vain. This isn’t important. We don’t want to pay for this,’” she said. “I said none of this is going to matter if the world can’t see it.”

Her boat was covered with cameras her shore team could monitor, with technology allowing for constant recording that could be used to capture unexpected twists. Ms. Brauer got some immediate traction, but nothing prepared her for the numbers she would hit once the race began.

“We were taking bets in Spain,” said Ms. Brauer, who had to sail First Light nearly 3,000 miles from Newport to Spain as a qualifier for the race. “There was a photo of me excited we hit 10,000 followers. Ten thousand for a little race? That’s massive.”

A few months later she has 40 times that count.

A Dangerous Journey

Only a handful of solo ocean racers have been American, all of whom being male. Now Ms. Brauer has a larger following than any of them, pushing far beyond the typical reach of her sport.

“This is a really good case study,” says Marcus Hutchinson, a project manager for ocean racing teams. “For me she’s an influencer. She’s a Kardashian. People will be looking for her to promote a product. She doesn’t need to worry about what the American sailors think. That’s parochial. She has to split with the American environment.”

Unlike her peers, Ms. Brauer is happy to do some extracurricular work along the way toward goals like competing in the prestigious Vendée Globe. “I’m part of the social media generation,” she said. “It’s not a burden to me.”

The playful videos and colorful backdrop, though, can make it easy for her followers to forget that she is in the middle of a dangerous race. Half her competitors in the Global Solo Challenge have pulled out, and ocean races still claim lives, particularly in the violent, frigid storms of the Southern Ocean.

“She was apprehensive,” Ms. Caffari said of Ms. Brauer’s rounding Cape Horn. “I told her: ‘You were devastated that you didn’t get on the Ocean Race. Now look at you. Those sailors didn’t even get to go to the Southern Ocean.’”

The question now is how Ms. Brauer will retain her followers’ desire for content after the race is over.

“She will be unaware of the transition she went through,” Mr. Hutchinson said. “She’s become a celebrity and hasn’t really realized it.”

Ms. Brauer, however, said she received as much from her followers as she gave them.

“They are so loving,” she said. “I send a photo of a sunset, and they paint watercolors of the scene to sell and raise money for the campaign. When I start to feel down, they let me stand on their shoulders.”

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Around The World Solo In a Sailboat: What Does It Take?

It takes stamina, humor, planning—not to mention hanging from a line 60 feet up, over waves the size of a house, in gale-force winds

Wendy Mitman Clarke

Imagine being alone on the ocean for five or ten weeks, sailing in snow, ice and spray cruel as needles. The wind belts you like a prizefighter. The boat is your only haven, yet it throws you like a bronco. Amid all this you must eat, sleep, navigate, find the quickest route and handle every problem yourself, from sprained wrist to snapped mast. This is the endurance test facing the 20 competitors in the BOC Challenge — a single-handed, round the world race that takes place every four years. The sailors began in Charleston, South Carolina, and after stops in three ports along the 27,000-mile route, they will end up in Charleston next month.

One of the racers, Steve Pettengill of Middletown, Rhode Island, gives a nearly day-by-day account of what it takes to prepare for and sail one leg of the race, from Cape Town, South Africa, to Sydney. We're "on board" as he stocks his boat, Hunter's Child, with freeze-dried meals and favorite cassettes, fine-tunes his computerized navigation station, battles freezing rain and stomach churning storms while making repairs and learns the sometimes sad fate of his competitors.

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Wendy Mitman Clarke | READ MORE

Wendy Mitman Clarke is director of media relations for Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland and a lifelong sailor obsessed with the ocean and all the wonder and weirdness that lives within it. Besides Smithsonian, her non-fiction stories have appeared in Preservation , and Chesapeake Bay Magazine . She's also a published poet.

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This race is a nonstop sail around the world. Cassette tapes are allowed, but no GPS

Scott Neuman

South African sailor Kirsten Neuschafer, the only woman in the 2022 Golden Globe Race. All but three of her 15 competitors in the grueling months-long competition have been forced to drop out. Aida Valceanu/GGR/2022 hide caption

South African sailor Kirsten Neuschafer, the only woman in the 2022 Golden Globe Race. All but three of her 15 competitors in the grueling months-long competition have been forced to drop out.

Somewhere in the Southern Pacific Ocean, Kirsten Neuschafer is alone on her boat, Minnehaha, as she tries to outmaneuver the latest storm to cross her path as she approaches Cape Horn.

Instead of sailing directly for the tip of South America, she's spent the past day heading north in an effort to skirt the worst of the oncoming weather. The storm is threatening wind gusts up to 55 miles per hour and seas building to 25 feet.

Her plan, she explains over a scratchy satellite phone connection, is to get away from the eye of the storm. "The closer I get to the Horn," she says, "the more serious things become, the windier it becomes."

But there's no turning back. That's because Neuschafer is battling to win what is possibly the most challenging competition the sailing world has to offer — the Golden Globe Race. Since setting off from the coast of France in September, Neuschafer, the only woman competing, has left all rivals in her wake. Of the 16 entrants who departed five months ago, only four are still in the race, and for the moment at least, she's leading.

The race is a solo, nonstop, unassisted circumnavigation, a feat first accomplished in 1969, the same year that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. Since then, more people have traveled to space than have done what Neuschafer is hoping to accomplish.

The race is a throwback in most every way. Unlike its more famous cousin, the Vendée Globe solo nonstop race with its purpose-built vessels made for speed, Golden Globe entrants sail low-tech boats that wouldn't look out of place in any coastal marina. And they do so without modern electronic aids — no laptops or electronic charts, radar or sophisticated weather routing. To find their position at sea, participants instead rely on navigating by the sun and stars and simple speed calculations.

Racers don't do it for the money. The prize of 5,000 pounds (about $6,045) is the same as it was in the 1960s and is not even enough to cover entry fees. The real lure is the challenge.

"The single-handed aspect was the one that drew me," Neuschafer, who is from South Africa, says of her decision to enter.

"I really like the aspect of sailing by celestial navigation, sailing old school," she says, adding that she's always wanted to know "what it would have been like back then when you didn't have all the modern technology at your fingertips."

Satellite phones are allowed, but only for communication with race officials and the occasional media interview. Each boat has collision-avoidance alarms and a GPS tracker, but entrants can't view their position data. There's a separate GPS for navigation, but it's sealed and only for emergencies. Its use can lead to disqualification. Entrants are permitted to use radios to communicate with each other and with passing ships. They're allowed to briefly anchor, but not get off the boat nor have anyone aboard. And no one is allowed to give them supplies or assistance.

The race motto, "Sailing like it's 1968," alludes to the fact that it's essentially a reboot of a competition first put on that year by the British Sunday Times newspaper. In it, nine sailors started, and only one, Britain's Robin Knox-Johnston , managed to complete the first-ever nonstop, solo circumnavigation, finishing in 312 days. Despite leading at one point, French sailor Bernard Moitessier elected to abandon the race in an effort, he said, to "save my soul." Yet another, British sailor Donald Crowhurst , died by suicide after apparently stepping off his boat.

Bringing the race back in 2018 for its 50th anniversary was the brainchild of Australian sailor and adventurer Don McIntyre, who describes the competition as "an absolute extreme mind game that entails total isolation, physical effort ... skill, experience and sheer guts."

"That sets it apart from everything," he says.

For sailors, it's the Mount Everest of the sea

Neuschafer, 40, is a veteran of the stormy waters she's presently sailing, having worked as a charter skipper in Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica. Although she's been around Cape Horn before, this time is different, she says.

Previously she's been around "the Horn" when she could choose the conditions. But nonstop from the Pacific, with limited weather information, "I'd say, it's a notch up on anxiety. It's almost like ... trying to reach the peak of Everest," she says.

Finnish sailor Tapio Lehtinen's boat sank in November off the southern tip of Africa. He was rescued with the help of fellow racer Kirsten Neuschafer. Aida Valceanu/GGR2022 hide caption

Finnish sailor Tapio Lehtinen's boat sank in November off the southern tip of Africa. He was rescued with the help of fellow racer Kirsten Neuschafer.

Probably the most harrowing moment so far in this year's race came in November, when Neuschafer sailed 100 miles, staying at Minnehaha's helm through the night to rescue Finland's Tapio Lehtinen — one of the finishers in the 2018 race. She plucked him from a life raft some 24 hours after his boat, Asteria, sank in the southern Indian Ocean.

For the rescue, race officials broke protocol and allowed her to use GPS and gave her a time credit on the race. "I basically sailed throughout the night and by morning I got within range of him," she says.

Spotting Lehtinen's tiny life raft amid 10-foot waves was far from easy, Neuschafer says. "He could see ... my sail [but] I couldn't see him, not for the life of me." She later managed to transfer him to a freighter.

That incident reinforced for her how things could change at any moment. In the Golden Globe, she says, "a large proponent of it is luck."

The days can be serene, but also isolating

The drama of such days at sea is offset by others spent in relative peace. A typical day, if there is such a thing, starts just before sunrise, she says, "a good time to get the time signal on the radio so that I can synchronize my watches," which she needs for accurate celestial navigation.

"Then ... I'll have a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal, and then I'll wait for the sun to be high enough that I can take a reasonable [sextant] sight." A walk around the deck to see if anything is amiss and perhaps a bit of reading — currently it's The Bookseller of Kabul by Norwegian journalist and author Asne Seierstad — before another sight at noon to check her position.

Or perhaps some music. It's all on cassette, since competitors aren't allowed a computer of any kind. As a result, she's listening to a lot of '80s artists, "good music that I ordinarily wouldn't listen to," she says.

The isolation was more difficult for American Elliott Smith, who at 27 was the youngest entrant in this year's race. He dropped out in Australia due to rigging failure.

Elliott Smith, a 27-year-old originally from Tampa, Fla. A rigging failure forced him to quit in Australia. Simon McDonnell/FBYC hide caption

Elliott Smith, a 27-year-old originally from Tampa, Fla. A rigging failure forced him to quit in Australia.

Reached in the Australian port city of Fremantle, the surfer-turned-sailor from Florida says he doesn't entirely rule out another try at the race in four years. But for now, he's put his boat, Second Wind, up for sale. He seems circumspect about the future.

"It was really obvious that I stopped enjoying the sailing at some point," he confides about the rigors of the race. "There were moments ... where I found myself never going outside unless I had to. I was like, 'I'm just staying in the cabin. I'm just reading. I'm miserable.' "

Smith says there were days when he would see an albatross, but was too mentally exhausted to appreciate the beauty of it. "I was like, 'This is so sad, you know?' Like, I've become complacent [about] something that most people would never even try, you know?"

Neuschafer, too, has had her share of frustrations. The latest was a broken spinnaker pole, which keeps her from setting twin forward sails on the 36-foot-long Minnehaha — her preferred setup for running downwind.

She's looking forward to finishing in early spring. But first, she still has to traverse the entire Atlantic Ocean from south to north.

"I'll get off and enjoy feeling the land beneath my feet." After that, she says, "the first thing I'd like to do is eat ice cream."

• around the world

After sailing around the world, Cole Brauer says she's more grounded than ever

C ole Brauer's adventure put her in the history books and in the heart of the most isolated and dangerous places on Earth. Not to mention Instagram .

The southern oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific that Brauer endured alone in her 30,000-mile sailboat voyage brought her face-to-face with bigger waves and storms than most people will ever see."It's like going to Mars and hoping that you can breathe," says Brauer, who became the first American woman this month to sail solo nonstop around the globe . "It's not made for humans."

She's now a seafaring celebrity who has been deluged with more questions about aquatic travel and surviving the dangers of the deep than Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau. That's because Brauer's social media followers now total half a million, and many are asking about her journey and how she did it.

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"With this newfound fame, I want to keep my feet on the ground," says the 29-year-old from Long Island. She's looking to chart a new course in the sailing industry, which has historically been a bastion of elitism and exclusivity, she said.

Brauer used Starlink − the low-orbit satellite network owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk − to get an internet signal on her voyage so that she could talk to her team, FaceTime with her mother and post videos to Instagram from her 40-foot Class40 sailboat, First Light.

She departed from A Coruña, Spain, on Oct. 29 and was at sea for 130 days. She competed against 15 male sailors, eight of whom had to drop out. Sailors set off at staggered times, depending on the speed of their boat. Brauer finished second in the race, behind France's Phillipe Delamare.

"Cole put in a tremendous effort to achieve a tremendous result," said Marco Nannini, who organized the Global Solo Challenge race.

Treacherous conditions in the Southern Hemisphere

Because the race took Brauer around the world, she had to endure scorching temperatures near the equator and near-freezing cold in the globe's southern oceans − where waters are more choppy and dangerous to sail, she said.

"I always had respect for the ocean, but this was an absolute different level," Brauer said. "It's beautiful. It's uninhabited. It's just untouched by humans."

Stronger winds and underwater currents in the Indian, South Atlantic and Pacific oceans often react to form bigger waves and "crazy storms," Brauer said, making those areas "some of the most dangerous places to be on the planet."

Unlike the part of the Atlantic Ocean stretching between North America and Europe, the southern oceans have a lot less traffic, Brauer said. During the two months she sailed there, she said, she saw only one other boat. The weather was colder and grayer, and the nights were much shorter.

The scariest moment came about two weeks from the end of race, when over just a couple days a fellow competitor had to abandon his ship because it started to sink and another had to do the same after his boat lost its mast.

It caused Brauer to feel paranoid, she said, even imagining noises coming from her own boat, which was also going through normal wear and tear.

"I just felt like, 'Oh my gosh, what's going to break next?'" she said. "Is the boat going to break in half?"

Alone in the middle of the ocean, Brauer felt homesickness, then zen

Brauer made it all the way around the world the same way any sailor goes from one point to another: staying out of direct wind and tacking from one direction to the next until she finally got to the finish line.

"You want to go straight, but you can't," she said. "You can't sail directly into the breeze; you have to tack back and forth at a 45-degree angle. I went around the world tacking, and jibing, and eventually you make it there − but there's a lot of twists and turns."

Brauer also had to constantly check the weather and change sails while also maintaining the boat.

"Everything has the possibility of breaking," Brauer said.

Brauer slept on a pile of bedding on the boat's floor for two to four hours at a time. She boiled water and used a warm wash cloth to bathe, she said. She packed 160 days' worth of freeze-dried food, including a peaches and cream oats mix that became her favorite.

Despite the technical challenges of sailing around the world, homesickness was by far the biggest challenge, she said. In Spain, before she set off on the race, nightly family-style dinners with teammates and group outings in A Coruña created intense personal bonds that she longed for on the ocean.

"All of a sudden I had a family of like 12, and you get very used to being surrounded by all these boisterous and loud people," she said.

But then, something clicked one evening when Brauer was in the boat's bow watching the colors of the sunset bleed through a massive sail.

"My body and my mind finally got used to being out there and and knowing that this was like where I was supposed to be," she said.

Brauer said she saw dolphins, sea turtles, plenty of fish and even a whale as big as her boat.

"It's just so magical," she said.

Pitch-black night skies were another highlight, Brauer said, especially when she was sailing through hot areas and the darkness brought cooler temperatures.

Brauer documented every moment on Instagram

Brauer shared details of her journey with tens of thousands of followers on Instagram. At the start of the race, her Instagram account had 10,000 followers and now boasts nearly 500,000.

Creating and posting more than 150 original videos from the boat allowed Brauer to stay connected with other people even when she was in the middle of the ocean.

Many of Brauer's videos showed her raw emotions up close, like in one post from early in the race when she angrily vents about the moment she realized she'd have to fix several boat parts on her own.

"Right now I've been feeling just broken," she says in the video.

That vulnerability is what's allowing Brauer to chart a new course in the sailing industry, she said.

"I've shown a good piece of me. I've put my heart and soul out there and I think a lot of people are really afraid to do that," she told USA TODAY. "If you want to judge me for changing or molding myself a different way, you don't have to follow me."

Race win was a team effort

Brauer surrounded herself with a team of sailors and experts who helped guide her from ashore. There were medical staff, a weather router, an expert rigger, an electronic systems manager, a sailmaker and many other team members.

Next, Brauer and her behind-the-scenes team are preparing for the Vendée Globe in 2028, another around-the-world race with stricter rules and a bigger cash prize. She won 5,000 euros (about $5,430) for finishing second in the Global Solo Challenge.

That race will be far more difficult, Brauer said, because the sailors have to race on their own and cannot receive any verbal assistance from their teammates on land.

Almost two weeks since reaching dry land, Brauer said, she now craves being out on the ocean more than ever and even feels a sense of pain when she's not able to see the water or look up to see a sky covered in white, fluffy clouds.

"The fear used to be about the boat, when I was on the boat. Now the fear is not being out there," she said. "I'm not afraid of the ocean − I'm afraid of not being on the ocean."

As for her goal of sailing around the world?

"I did everything that it took to get here, and now I can bask in it. I made the biggest dream that I could possibly think of doing and then did it."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After sailing around the world, Cole Brauer says she's more grounded than ever