LI WOMAN IN RECORD SOLO SAIL
30K-mile, 130-day voyage ’round 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 grueling 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 2023 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 historymaking effort. More than half of the other competitors had 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.
‘Need to keep moving’
The East Hampton native didn’t even take up sailing until she decamped to the University of Hawai’i for college in 2014, according to her profile.
“When I moved to Hawaii for university, all I wanted was to get out on the water,” she said.
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.
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.
She often showed fans her peaceful mornings and onboard workout sessions in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Cole wants to prove you can go around the world and watch Netflix every once in awhile, and wear your pajamas,” her media manager, Lydia Mullan, told The New York Times.
But 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.
Brauer had no other choice but to power through the pain.
“You kind of just need to keep moving along and keep doing everything,” she told the “Today” show Thursday.