Banque Populaire’s dropping of Clarisse Cremer has caused widespread outrage among the offshore sailing community, and has become a huge national story in FranceIMOCA skipper Clarisse Cremer, who has recently given birth to her first child, has been controversially dropped by her sponsor Banque Populaire ahead of the 2024 Vend\u00e9e Globe.
\nCremer, who currently holds the record for being the fastest woman to sail solo around the world, raced for Banque Populaire in the last Vend\u00e9e Globe, and was due to take the helm of the former Apivia for the same backers in the 2024 race.
\nIn a post on her Facebook page, Cremer explained that, although she wasn\u2019t obligated to, she had told her sponsors in February 2021 that she planned to start a family.
\n\u201cThey still chose me for this new Vend\u00e9e Globe and communicated our mutual commitment in autumn 2021.
\n\u201cI learned last Friday that Banque Populaire had finally decided to replace me. By their decision, and despite my constant will, I will not be part of the Vend\u00e9e Globe 2024.
\n\u201cVend\u00e9e Globe rules for the 2024 edition require all skippers to compete based on race miles. On this note, I of course fell behind the other competitors at the start, this maternity leave, left me out of qualifying for a year.
\n\u201cToday Banque Populaire decides that it represents for them a \u201crisk\u201d that they ultimately do not want to take.\u201d
\nCremer finished the last Vendee Globe in 12th position and currently holds the record for being the fastest woman to sail solo around the world. Photo: imoca.org
\nThe news has caused widespread outrage among the offshore sailing community, but has also become a huge national story in France, with French politicians including Isabelle Rome, the Minister for Equality, and Am\u00e9lie Oud\u00e9a-Cast\u00e9ra, Minister for Sport, wading into the row.
\nIt\u2019s nothing short of a PR disaster for Banque Populaire.
\nRace for Vend\u00e9e Globe qualifying miles
\nThe rules for Vend\u00e9e Globe qualification have changed for 2024, with the race likely to be oversubscribed for the 40 available berths.
\nPreviously skippers who had completed the race were guaranteed entry. However, this time around skippers must not only qualify their boat (by completing two solo races on it from a list of qualifying events, at least one of which MUST be in 2024, another of which could be in 2023 or 2022, so Cremer is only one season behind) but also build additional miles.
\nThat\u2019s because in the event that too many skippers qualify, spaces will be awarded to the skippers with the most miles sailed in all the IMOCA Globe Series races from the 2021 Transat Jacques Vabre onwards (in any boat). These are the races that Cremer hasn\u2019t been able to build miles in over the past two years whilst pregnant and since giving birth in November 2022.
\n\u201cI am in shock, other projects launched much more recently are still going on without an eyebrow [raised]. [There are] 2 full seasons left and 4 transatlantic [races] to get back on the level I was on\u201d Cremer added.
\nThe only other way to qualify is to have a new IMOCA 60 (the first 13 newly launched boats to qualify automatically gain entry), or a single \u2018wildcard\u2019 entry, for which the criteria are vague.
\nPhoto: Banque Populaire\/Vend\u00e9e Globe
\nSponsors response
\nBanque Populaire yesterday issued a statement saying: \u201cClarisse is today in a situation which does not allow her to hope to obtain the number of points necessary to qualify for the Vend\u00e9e Globe 2024.
\n\u201cAware of this risk for several months, Team Banque Populaire had begun discussions with SAEM Vend\u00e9e in the summer of 2022 to address the unique situation of the sailor, 12th in the Vend\u00e9e Globe 2020\/2021, 1st woman and holder of the women\u2019s record.
\n\u201cDetermined to take the start of the race alongside her in 2024, several solutions have been proposed by Team Banque Populaire to the organizer so that the regulations take into account the situation of women in the Vend\u00e9e Globe and the question of maternity.
\n\u201cAll these proposals, as well as requests for the allocation of a wildcard guarantee, have been rejected, including the one made just a few days ago, and this is regrettable.
\n\u201cIn order, despite everything, to guarantee the future of the project in the next Vend\u00e9e Globe and with regard to human (creation of a team) and financial (acquisition of a boat) investments, Team Banque Populaire must unfortunately resign itself to evolve its project by entrusting the Banque Populaire XII bar to a new skipper whose name will be communicated in the coming days.\u201d
\nApivia, the IMOCA upon which Cremer was due to compete in the next Vendee was still being raced by its previous skipper into late 2022. Photo: Pierre Bouras\/Apivia
\nIt\u2019s worth noting that the IMOCA in question, Apivia, was still being raced by its previous skipper Charlie Dalin up to and including last year\u2019s Route du Rhum (he finished 2nd). So the new skipper of the boat when it becomes Banque Populaire XII will still need to qualify the IMOCA with two solo races in 2023 and 2024.
\nSeveral hours later, race organisers also posted a response on social media, saying: \u201cIn order to preserve the fairness of all candidates\u2026 the Race Organisation cannot under any circumstances allow itself to change the rules when the selection process has already begun.
\n\u201cFor the Wild Card, this is a possibility that has been discussed with Team Banque Populaire and Clarisse Cremer. This cannot be decided until the end of the selection process, as the Vend\u00e9e Globe does not know which skippers could be eligible.\u201d
\nThe flagship Ultime Banque Populaire Xl is the result of a colossal 150,000 hours of design and construction\u00a0work. Photo: J Lecaudey\/BPCE
\nLong history
\nBanque Populaire has been one of the biggest investors and most successful sponsors in French ocean racing for many years. The stable\u2019s incredibly high profile and high value campaigns have included setting the non-stop around the world fully crewed record, the Jules Verne Trophy, with Loick Peryon skippering in 2011 (they also sponsored Peyron in a Vend\u00e9e Globe), and Armel le Cl\u00e9ac\u2019h\u2019s 2016 Vend\u00e9e Globe-winning campaign.
\nIn 2021 they launched Banque Populaire XI, a brand new 100ft Ultime to be skippered by Le Cl\u00e9ac\u2019h in solo and crewed record attempts, after their previous Ultime broke up and was deemed a total write off during the 2018 Route du Rhum. Even the most conservative estimates of the cost of such a project put it north of \u20ac10million.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re willing to take on the risk of a giant trimaran, and all the natural, technical and human hazards of racing offshore, but obviously not motherhood,\u201d wrote Cremer.
\n\u201cIf offshore racing exists today it is because sponsors choose it as a communication lever and use it to tell beautiful sporting stories and therefore, a priori, human. I am totally confused with the story this sponsor is choosing to tell today: \u2018The Globe Vend\u00e9e, at all costs.\u2019
\nCremer is clearly a great asset to any sponsor and is a well known female face of the sport. Young, bright, articulate and bilingual, she delivered engaging videos throughout the Vend\u00e9e Globe as well as hitting some serious performance targets by finishing 12th on her first attempt and setting a new world record for the fastest woman to sail solo around the world.
\nCremer onboard the previous Banque Populaire IMOCA. Photo: IMOCA.org
\nNobody else\u2019s decision
\nCremer is rare and brave in speaking up publicly. Usually when skippers are replaced in big offshore campaigns they \u2018go quietly\u2019, dip back into the Figaro or Class 40 for a while, then maybe \u2013 or maybe not \u2013 get reappointed for another campaign later down the line. There\u2019s often the Lorient equivalent of a football transfer season around the big race dates.
\nIn doing so it\u2019s clear there is widespread support for her, as well as a great deal of anger. Women sailors have a right to be angry about this, because the online reaction has highlighted one other huge thing that has to stop in our sport: questioning whether a mother should go sailing around the world.
\nI\u2019ve seen it in comment after comment debating Cremer\u2019s situation; \u201cYou have a baby\u2026 your daughter will miss you\u2026 It\u2019s for the best\u2026\u201d But I have watched countless farewell scenes of male sailors saying goodbye to their families on the dock. I\u2019ve welled up at footage of skippers hugging a tousle-haired toddler knowing they\u2019ll be half a foot taller the next time they see them. I\u2019ve read endearing stories of how male sailors have discovered they\u2019re going to be a father on a crackly satphone connection.
\nNot once have I ever read criticism of them for going. Not once have I seen a male sailor questioned for not being at home supporting their partner, for not bonding with their baby, for missing \u2018precious moments\u2019. It\u2019s a criticism that is solely levelled at women and it needs to end. Now. There\u2019s only one person in the world who can make that decision.
\nTo see the full list of qualification mileage the various skippers have managed to date you can head over to ouest-france.fr who keep track of all the miles completed by all skippers in the wide variety of qualifying races on their Vendee mileage tracker.<\/p>\n
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The post The \u2018motherhood penalty\u2019? Controversy as Vend\u00e9e Globe skipper Clarisse Cremer loses sponsor appeared first on Yachting World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Banque Populaire’s dropping of Clarisse Cremer has caused widespread outrage among the offshore sailing community, and has become a huge national story in FranceIMOCA skipper Clarisse Cremer, who has recently given birth to her first child, has been controversially dropped … <\/p>\n