Sailor Cole Brauer has become the first American woman to race solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, completing a journey spanning 30,000 miles after 130 days at sea.
Brauer set off from A Coruna in Spain on Oct. 29 to circumnavigate the globe via the three great capes of Africa, Australia and South America as part of the Global Solo Challenge race. She returned to the Spanish port city on Thursday.
Despite sustaining rib injuries around the midpoint of the race, the 29-year-old finished in second place.
She was the youngest skipper and the only female sailor in the fleet of 16 boats.
“This is really cool and so overwhelming in every sense of the word,” NBC News quoted Brauer as saying.
“It would be amazing if there was just one girl that saw me and said, ‘Oh, I can do that too.'”
In 1978, Poland’s Krystyna Chojnowska-Liskiewicz became the first woman to complete a solo circumnavigation of the globe. She set sail from the Canary Islands in March 1976 and returned in April 1978.
Australia’s Kay Cottee was the first woman to accomplish the feat non-stop, setting sail from Sydney Harbour in November 1987 and returning 189 days later.
