France's Clarisse Cremer back at helm for round world Vendee

LONDON: French sailor Clarisse Cremer, who lost her sponsorship only months after the birth of her daughter, is back on course for the 2024 Vendee Globe, with Britain's Alex Thomson and a new partner on board.

"I was not too sure it was going to happen this way a few months ago," Cremer told Reuters during an interview with Thomson, adding that in a matter of weeks she had a boat, a team and French cosmetics group L'OCCITANE en Provence as sponsor.

Cremer, who in 2021 set the record for a solo, non-stop, monohull circumnavigation by a woman, was dropped in January by Banque Populaire which feared that new qualifying rules meant she would not be able to start the race.

"It's a huge challenge to come back from a pregnancy, so I have lots to do," Cremer, 33, said of the run-up to her first planned offshore race, the Fastnet in late July.

The 24,000 mile Vendee, known as the Everest of sailing, is one of the few top sporting events where women compete with men.

Thomson, 49, whose best result in the French-dominated race was second, said L'OCCITANE had proved a "saviour" and would help to make sailing more equitable.

Cremer said she was looking forward to sailing with Thomson for the first time on her newly-acquired boat, which finished second in the Vendee in 2021 and which Thomson said had cost "a little under" €5 million (US$5.5 million).

"Clarisse deserves exactly what she had before, if not more ... That's the bit that we are so excited about ... for her to go out and prove that she can do this job, she can be a mum and she can be an athlete and she can be brilliant at both," Thomson said.