Alone on the Ocean, With 400,000 Friends

March 3, 2024 8:15 PM

Cole Brauer’s Instagram feed hardly feels like the work of someone racing a 40-foot sailboat around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. But Ms. Brauer, 29, is not an average ocean racer. In 2022, Ms. Brauer had tried out for another competition, the Ocean Race, which is considered the pinnacle of professional ocean racing. Sailors in that race are highly trained, wear matching foul weather gear and have corporate sponsors. And most of them are men. Ms. Brauer, who had sailed thousands of miles on high performance ocean racing boats, felt she was ready to join their ranks. (NYTimes - archive) But after competing in trials in France, Ms. Brauer was told she was “too short for the Southern Ocean” and was sent on her way.
posted by ShooBoo (16 comments total)

"Only a handful of solo ocean racers have been American, all of whom being male."
posted by Stupidsexyflanders_take2 at 2:36 AM on March 4

It's hard to convey, I think, without having experience sailing on the ocean much lass racing on the ocean, but Cole Brauer is kind of person you most want on your team - I've been following her feed for a couple months and her cool in moments of extravagant duress (there was a night where she was knocked down _twice_ (a knock-down is where your mast goes into the water and can easily be a pre-cursor to losing your mast or a hatch popping and the boat sinking (I don't know if her boat is 'positive' buoyancy (will float full of water), some boats are) it can be a traumatic and/or catastrophic event and it happened to her twice and her reaction was so measured, so reasonable, so professional (my boat did this, this happened, luckily nothing else happened, and I fixed it like this) was... You know how with some people you just feel safe? On a sailboat there are so many many many things that can go wrong... that an experienced sailor spends a lot of time doing things just to forestall the potential of future disaster - and in everything she does you can see she has a weather eye out at all times.

It's inspiring.

She has kicked ass so hard ... it's Alex Honnold free-soloing ElCap levels of hard. It's Venus Williams level of ass-kickery.

A good summation of her achievement from the 'Global Solo Challenge' website.
posted by From Bklyn at 3:10 AM on March 4 [19 favorites]

I've lived on a boat and done ocean voyages, and the level of bravery / insanity required to go at it alone is really hard to quantify. Let's just say that it is a whole lot. It is up there with BASE jumping. This woman could easily be an astronaut. Extremely impressive and I hope she gets to her destination safely.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:14 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

What a delightful sailor. I followed her on IG and can't wait until she docks this week.
posted by waving at 6:39 AM on March 4

much lass racing on the ocean

And the award for best inadvertent post title goes to . . .
posted by The Bellman at 6:44 AM on March 4 [10 favorites]

Much racing! Much lass! Very ocean!
posted by NotAYakk at 7:13 AM on March 4 [9 favorites]

This woman could easily be an astronaut.

Nonsense, any man will tell you she's not tall enough.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:27 AM on March 4 [6 favorites]

Nono, it's the wrong kind of bravery. The, uh. The girly kind. Er, what I mean to say is she's not a good fit. With our kind of bravery. You know. The one tall people have.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:02 AM on March 4 [2 favorites]

In other words, I hope she fucking increases the fucking thing.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:12 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

All I can get from the IG link is "page couldn't load." Anybody else?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:44 AM on March 4

It works for me.
posted by pracowity at 8:59 AM on March 4

Holy hell, she's tough and fearless.
posted by pracowity at 9:00 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I hope she gets some hugely rich sponsors who enable her to sail forever on the world's best boats.
posted by pracowity at 9:09 AM on March 4 [2 favorites]

wow, this blog post from the Global Solo Challenge link in the OP describes all the different challenges that caused other sailors to drop out retire from the contest. sounds freakin rough out there!!
posted by crime online at 10:04 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]

The Global Solo Challenge site's reporting makes for really really sobering reading.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:50 AM on March 5

She's in! A remarkable feat. One for the books.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:50 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]