There was a moment when Clarisse Crémer stopped working her boat and simply wept. She crouched below deck, sheltering from the wind and waves that were battering the hull into pieces. The solo yachtswoman was mid-race, between France and New York, in May. If she did not finish the Transat CIC, she would fail to qualify for the 2024 Vendée Globe, the round-the-world race that takes place every four years. But there was a crack in her bulkhead more than four metres long. This was not about racing any more, it was about surviving.
“It’s always super humbling,” Crémer says, recalling her emotions that day. “Sailors are competitive people, we like to push ourselves and the boat hard, but suddenly you realise you’re just on a very small boat in the middle of a big ocean and the amount of water around you is infinite.”
