Cole Brauer is the first American woman to sail solo non-stop around the world. Yachting World’s Helen Fretter finds out how she is shaking things up:
The first Saturday in November was laundry day for Cole Brauer. One week into her single-handed around the world race, the Global Solo Challenge, the 29-year-old washed her smalls in a bucket, clipped them onto the lifelines of the Class 40 First Light, and posted a light-hearted video about it, hair in a towel, spa-style, with a confetti of underwear fluttering behind her.
Eyebrows were raised. Offshore skippers don’t usually share quite so much. Not only was Brauer going to put it all out there, but she was going to tell her story her own wa, humorously, honestly, unashamedly feminine.
Over Brauer’s 130 days at sea her Instagram account became a juggernaut that built to nearly half a million followers. Many had no idea what sailing around the world actually entails.
But Brauer’s race wasn’t just a publicity stunt. She set out to become the first American woman to sail non-stop around the world, and did so in one of the most grueling ocean races.
The Global Solo Challenge is a pursuit format with boats’ start times staggered according to their handicap, for Brauer’s 2008 Class 40, that meant a 29 October start.
It also means that rather than sailing with a pack, skippers are alone for the vast majority of the race, picking off slower opposition ahead, then slogging their way across the oceans without the reassurance of any fellow competitors nearby.
Of 16 starters, nine have retired. Boats were rolled, dismasted, one skipper had to abandon ship after a near-sinking. Brauer was the only woman and youngest competitor.
When she finished in A Coruña on 7 March, her time of 130d 2h 45m set a new benchmark as the fastest solo non-stop around the world on a 40ft yacht. It was 17 days quicker than the winner, Philip Delamare, who had set off a month earlier.
Yet Cole did not grow up in the sailing world. Following her rapturous reception in Spain, she flew home to the States and, after speaking on prime time television and meeting Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House, went back to living in her van. So how on earth did she get there?
Brauer, and her twin sister, Dalton, grew up on Long Island. Her parents were determined their daughters should be able to hold their own, intentionally giving them gender-neutral names.
“My parents met in a gym,” Brauer recalled. “My dad was a rower, triathlete and cyclist. My mom a cyclist, kayaker and trail runner. My parents pushed me extremely hard in cycling, rock climbing and running. All other sports were not sports, and not as respected.
“Throughout school we had physical fitness tests. My dad looked at the boys’ metric and threw the girls’ metric out. He said, if the boys can do it, you can too. We started with pull-ups; I was already a rock climber and avid tree climber [so] pull-ups came easy. But he wanted me to make sure I did more than any of the boys.”
Sailing wasn’t on her radar until she went to the University of Hawaii, where she studied nutritional science and took up dinghy racing. “Maybe because I didn’t grow up sailing, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as professional sailors. It was very relaxed,” she said.
“Being in the University of Hawaii, we’re our own separate little bubble. I was just trying to be the best that I could be in Hawaii. Then I wanted to see if I could be the best that I can be in my hometown, on the East Coast.”
After graduating she returned home to make a life-changing decision. “I had a choice between going to medical school or working at a yacht club teaching sailing. And my parents did not see these on the same level at all! My dad didn’t speak to me for six months. He was so upset because, of course, I chose to work as a sailing instructor teaching Opti’s.
“Then everything after that was me asking for work. So everywhere I went, I would say, ‘Hey, if you need a small worker bee…’ [Brauer is 5ft 2in], just to clean the bilges or scrub the bottom of the boat and whatnot. Everyone needs a worker bee. I met all these famous sailors because I was the one that was polishing the stainless on a cruising boat, but next to a TP52. I just wanted to be in that world. And it didn’t matter if I never made it.”
Living in her van in Newport, Rhode Island, she would sneak into the elegant New York Yacht Club for showers. “But I was very much accepted. I love fashion, so I can blend in. And I can get along with a lot of people. So I kind of weaseled my way in, by being friendly and open and not looking like a professional sailor.” – Full Story
Source: scuttlebutt – https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/06/23/cole-brauer-shaking-it-up/
