Cole Brauer, the 29-year-old East Hampton High graduate who has been sailing solo around the world in the Global Solo Challenge race, was as of Monday speeding in advance of a low pressure system bearing strong and unfavorable winds toward the finish line at A Coruna, Spain. She’s been aboard her Class40, First Light, since setting forth from A Coruna on the daunting circumnavigation some four months ago.
Her estimated time of arrival “ranges from March 6 afternoon to March 7th midday,” Marco Nannini, the race’s organizer, said Monday. “She’s expected to arrive ahead of the developing depression.”
The winner, Philippe Delamare, a 61-year-old Frenchman, crossed the A Coruna finish line on Feb. 24. Brauer, should all go well in the some 600 miles that remain, would be the runner-up, though Nannini has hailed her as “the second winner” inasmuch as she would be the first American woman – and the 18th woman overall – to sail solo nonstop around the world’s three great capes. More than 400,000 have followed her compelling posts on Instagram, and she has attracted, somewhat to her dismay, attention from major news outlets.
The New York Times’s Chris Museler said in an online story this week that the 5-foot-1-inch Brauer has been on a mission since having been deemed too short to meet the demands of the 2022 Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race).
He quoted Lydia Mullan, Brauer’s media manager, as saying, “Cole wants to prove you can go around the world and watch Netflix every once in a while, and wear your pajamas. 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.”
Nannini said Monday that nine of the 16 sailors (Brauer is the sole woman in the fleet) who set out in staggered starts from A Coruna, beginning at the end of August, had come to grief. After striking “an unidentified object,” one sailboat became partially-submerged before its sailor, William MacBrien, was rescued after 46 anxious hours by a cargo vessel. Others had to withdraw owing to dismastings (two), broken autopilots (two), a broken rudder (one), rigging problems (one), a back injury (one), and a kidney stone (one).
“Wet and wild out here,” Brauer posted on Sunday. “An awesome little rip before the finish! Slow build all morning to a jibe which then led to gusts up to 45, but I had reefed early and was totally prepared to send it!!”
“Three more nights to go . . . insane to think about! Doesn’t feel real. But loving every second I have left.”