NY skipper Cole Brauer overcame broken ribs, deteriorating boat to become first US woman to sail solo around the world
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.”
