Clarisse Cremer 12th in the Vendée Globe.
The first female breaks solo nonstop monohull round the world
After a prudent, careful passage across a boisterous Bay of Biscay, negotiating one last stormy low pressure, a triumphant Clarisse Cremer crossed the finish line of the ninth Vendée Globe at 15:44:25 hrs UTC to take an excellent 12th place on Banque Populaire X.
Finishing in late afternoon Vendée sunshine and a diminishing westerly wind of 20kts with 4-5m seas she is the first female skipper to finish from the field of 33 starters.
Her elapsed time of 87 days 02 hours and 24 minutes Cremer breaks Ellen MacArthur‘s 21-year monohull solo non-stop record for a female skipper of 94 days 4 hours which she set when she took second in the 2000-2001 Vendée Globe.
But 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.”
She received a huge, warm welcome in Les Sables d’Olonne’s channel as thousands of well wishers turned out to see the return of the sailor who only sailed her IMOCA 15 months ago for the first time.
