Sailor Clarisse Crémer (L’Occitane en Provence), victim of major damage on Wednesday during the solo race The Transat which links Lorient to New York, got closer to the Azores on Friday. She plans to repair her ship there to complete her journey.
“I don’t know when I’m going to arrive in Horta… the partition is holding, but I’m a little afraid of rejoicing and that it will bring me bad luck. There are 300 miles (482 km) left to go and I am in a windless zone,” she said in a video sent from the edge.
Thursday, just after the passage of a front, the 34-year-old skipper, 12th in the last Vendée Globe, spotted a crack that had appeared the day before of around 4 m on the front bulkhead of her monohull, causing several leaks. “I have a partition that exploded. We’re going to have to slow down (…) I don’t know how I’m going to do it, I’m exhausted,” she said with a lump in her throat in another video, showing the extent of the damage.
After having “secured the structure” of the sailboat thanks to a makeshift repair, she headed towards the Azores, where her team on land is waiting for her to “carry out a complete assessment” of the vessel.
“Go to New York” to do the Vendée Globe
Several competitors have abandoned since the start on Sunday in Lorient, but Crémer hopes to “go all the way to New York”. The sailor must cover a maximum of miles and complete the transatlantic to obtain her qualification for the Vendée Globe in November, after two years of an obstacle course.
🇫🇷 An early wake-up call for Clarisse! Despite the difficult conditions on board since yesterday, she can still count on the comfort of her superb bed made by our team and its suppliers! pic.twitter.com/mxqBiHN2qy
— L’Occitane Sailing Team (@LOccitaneSail) May 1, 2024
At the start of 2023, she was dismissed by her sponsor Banque Populaire, who feared that she would not be able to qualify for the Everest of the seas. In February, she was the target of anonymous accusations of cheating in the last Vendée Globe, then cleared by an international jury. At the time of the damage in the heart of the North Atlantic, she was in 17th position in the fleet of 33 boats.
