This sailor left Newport to race solo/non-stop around the world, the first US woman to do it
NEWPORT – Newport's adopted daughter, all 100 pounds of her, is taking on the world.
Cole Brauer, in her beloved and trusted 40-foot yacht First Light, sailed out of Newport Tuesday morning, bound for Spain. In an endeavor she labels far more job than adventure, the 5-foot-2 Brauer is geared to be the first American female sailor to race solo/non-stop around the world.
Neither competing nor finishing – both significant accomplishments – is her primary goal. She's sailing to win. And she's not shaking in her boat shoes pondering the roughly four months being physically alone with First Light, sailing a reverse Magellan route, in the inaugural Global Solo Challenge. This non-stop race starts late next month in A Coruña, at the northwest tip of Spain, where it also finishes.
Brauer's longest previous solo sail was 1,200 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Newport. Global Solo is 26,000 nautical miles. That's quite a leap.
“It's not intimidating for me,” Brauer, 29, said recently at the Newport Shipyard, where First Light has been fine-tuned this summer. “Maybe I'm naive, but I've had my head down so many years just focused to this goal, going around the world, I've gotten very tolerant to this idea. Maybe it was intimidating in the beginning. But we're just taking it day by day.”
Why she left from Newport
Brauer rolled into town back in April and has had her very crowded van/home parked here for most of the spring and summer. She calls Newport the sailing capital of the world and said she couldn't think of a better place to get her boat ready for the big, big race.
In June, she won the 24th biennial Bermuda One-Two, a Newport-to-Bermuda-to-Newport race that requires a solo sail on the first leg and a double hand on the way back.
On her solo leg south, Brauer landed in Bermuda 18 hours ahead of her closest competitor, with a time of 3 days, 4 hours, and 55 minutes. Primary skipper Brauer and secondary skipper Cat Chimney (a marine electrician from Newport), made the return trip in 3 days, 1 hour, and 30 minutes, beating the runner-up by 12 hours and making Brauer the Bermuda One-Two's first female winner. There were 25 boats in the field.
First Light's owners, the Day brothers of Chicago, then asked Brauer what should be next. They were, she said, anxious for another win. In a go-big-or-go-home move, Brauer suggested the Global Solo Challenge, and the Days, who years ago recruited her to sail their 40-footer, gave a quick thumbs up.
What does her family think about the race?
Brauer's parents, meanwhile, scratched their heads.
“They think I'm nuts,” she said with a smile. “They think I'm absolutely insane. I would say that they think I'm insane, but they're getting used to the idea. And I think that their 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, sailing on cool boats, having beverages at yacht clubs, and not really fulfilling what my mind and body was made to do, which is what my parents always wanted me to do.”
How she got into sailing
While she's starting to assemble quite the race sailing resume, Brauer does not head into her latest and greatest challenge with your typical sailing pedigree. At East Hampton High School on Long Island, she was a three-sport star athlete who didn't know the way to the yacht clubs. She and sailing didn't discover each other until she went to college at the University of Hawaii where she joined the sailing team. But, oh how they hit it off.
She was hooked. Instead of trying for, perhaps, a spot in medical school after graduating with a degree in food science and human nutrition with a focus on medicine, Brauer recognized her true calling: sailing. Competitive sailing, in fact.
Enthusiastic, smart and plenty tough enough to keep plugging when she wasn't always treated warmly, she worked on crew after crew, on bigger and bigger boats. She didn't let occasional rejection derail her dream. She wasn't too proud to keep asking for a spot on a yacht. She knew she could prove her worth, and keep learning.
'I know I don't fit the mold'
She's been a professional for five years. The Days recruited her to sail their beloved First Light. So what if she's 5-2 (maybe) and 100 pounds and can't haul sails around like the guys do? She still gets the heavy, exhausting work – the lugging, the grinding – done, and done properly and in timely fashion. She's learned exactly how to position her body, right down to her feet, to get the brute work done. It's like science to her. She said she wouldn't wave some magic wand to make herself bigger and stronger.
She's very comfortable operating under Brauer Power, even though, or maybe especially because, so many people can't resist telling her she does not look like an elite racing sailor.
“I've been told that by everybody, including teammates, former employers, my mother, everyone under the sun,” she said with another big smile. “I know I don't fit the mold. I don't think there's a particular mold for a sailor. And if there is one, we should break it.”
Brauer is very comfortable with her 40-foot fiberglass pal. She affectionately refers to First Light as a “tank”, not because it plods through the water but because she feels so protected by the Class 40 Owen-Clarke design. She said Team Brauer has First Light in tip-top shape and that, on the seas, she can fix just about anything aboard.
“I wouldn't want to be on any other boat,” she said. “I always said I want race around the world on this boat. I've been with her long time. … She's my protector. She is my primary life raft. She's everything to me. I'll spend four months with her. I can't imagine a better boat to do this on.”
What to know about the Global Solo Challenge
The race route will take the sailors south, across the equator, and then turn east. It passes under Africa, under Australia, and under South America before turning north for the run back to Spain. So, most of the course is in the Southern Hemisphere, where October through January/February is spring into summer.
Team Brauer has the skipper provisioned for 167 days. The around-the-world record for a 40-footer, she said, is 137 days. Brauer's goal is 120-130 days.
The penalty for a land stop is five days. Race officials will be notified electronically if she puts First Light's motor in gear.
Her food is supply is entirely freeze-dried meals. She, of course, has water. She'll be all alone on the oceans, but she won't be. First Light is equipped with sophisticated electronics. That includes Starlink, meaning she'll be able to FaceTime.
The challenge is both physical and mental. She said the team has already brainstormed about the need for her to eat and drink enough; she must be at full strength in order to give the race all she can physically and mentally. Brauer stresses that this is in no way, for her, a pleasure cruise as, perhaps, it is for some competitors. Global Solo Challenge is all business for the pride of Springs, Long Island and Boothbay Harbor, Maine (where her parents re-located) and, yes, Newport, R.I.
“I'm not an adventurer,” she said. “I'm a racer. This is what I've been trained to do for number years. I'm here to compete. Here to race. This is a stepping stone.”
So many people ask Brauer how sleep works when you're sailing solo for a long time. First Light does have an auto-pilot for sailing. She said she'll sleep, at night, in periods of one to two hours. Awakened by an alarm or by her brain, she'll go on deck to check the sails, to give everything a good look. And if all's well it's back down for some more abbreviated shut eye.
There are four cameras on First Light. The plan is to make a documentary. That's four more cameras than there are bathrooms. Brauer has only a trusty bucket for relief and an awful lot of water for disposal. Repeat, this is not a pleasure cruise.
She said people can follow her race course progress on the Global Solo Challenge website. She'll be posting on Instagram.
Hoping to inspire other female sailors
Brauer said she hopes her participation – and, better yet, a strong showing – can help others, namely other female sailors, to aspire to great things in the world of competitive sailing. It is, she said, a male dominated world that isn't always the most welcoming to females, especially small ones.
She said part of the reason she's sailing to Spain (estimated 12 to 15 days) for the race is so there will be absolutely no way anyone can question whether she has sailed the prerequisite solo hours. She's double dotting her i's and double crossing her t's.”
“I've been denied from a lot of different programs, some around-the-world,” she said. “It's always had to do with my size. I want to show that it's possible to be that little girl from Long Island who did not grow up sailing and still be a professional sailor.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Cole Brauer could be first female to sail solo/non-stop around world
