Vendée Globe: Ellen MacArthur congratulates Clarisse Crémer: "A big bravo!"

Even when it's hard, she still makes it look easy: Clarisse Crémer finished her first Vendée Globe in twelfth place and was celebrated enthusiastically by thousands of fans in Les Sables-d'Olonne on Wednesday. "If I had the chance to go straight back today, I would do it," said the 31-year-old from Locmiquélic. The "Banque Populaire X" skipper crossed the finish line after 87 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes and 25 seconds. Clarisse Crémer thus beat Ellen MacArthur's two-decade-old solo record, which the British sailing icon had set at the Vendée Globe 2000/01, when she finished a highly acclaimed second behind Michel Desjoyeaux. MacArthur, who later retired from active professional sailing and has long campaigned for a sustainable circular economy with her foundation, congratulated Clarisse Crémer with a personal message:

"Hi Clarisse, just a quick note to say a big bravo to you for your race around the world. It's great to see you finish. It's a really exceptional lap. You did everything well that you did!"

"Banque Populaire" skipper Clarisse Crémer was celebrated in Les Sables-d'Olonne on Wednesday: The 31-year-old crossed the finish line in twelfth place and best female skipper of the 9th edition

This also applies to the last few nautical miles, in which Clarisse Crémer had to deal with the beastly Bay of Biscay once again. A stormy low-pressure area put the young Frenchwoman to the test one last time with winds of 20 knots and more and waves four to five metres high before she was the first of the remaining female skippers to return to the start and finish harbour in the evening. Six women lined up on the starting line alongside 27 men on 8 November 2020. However, the two most highly rated on paper had to retire: "Initiatives-Cœur" skipper Sam Davies as a result of a UFO collision and the German-French Isabelle Joschke with a broken keel suspension.

Clarisse Crémer came through. Also because she had fewer technical problems than others with her excellently prepared boat from the Banque Populaire sailing racing stable and often sailed the Imoca yacht with deliberate restraint in heavy weather - as she did recently in the Bay of Biscay. She herself does not want to judge her performance in female categories: "There is no women's category. I'm a sailor at sea and I don't tell myself that there's a man or a woman sailing in front of me. I don't think about it at all. This is a mixed race and a mixed sport." The former mini runner-up in the series ranking first sailed the boat that has just taken her around the world 15 months ago. She only learnt how to sail it well and successfully during the race, nautical mile after nautical mile. "Now that I can do it and have learnt a lot about this boat, I almost want to take it and do it all over again," said Crémer. We will soon be hearing from the sailor again, who has business diplomas from the elite Parisian school HEC and the American Kelley College in her pocket, but still decided to sail solo and, after successes in the mini-scene, was given the chance to compete in her first Vendée Globe by the Banque Populaire racing team. Her mentor there: none other than the winner of the eighth edition in 2016/17 - Armel Le Cléac'h, who was one of the first well-wishers on the water together with her husband Tanguy Le Turquais.