Clarisse Crémer leaves with a new sponsor, L’Occitane en Provence

French skipper Clarisse Crémer aboard her Imoca 60 monohull on February 3, 2021. She announced that she had found a new sponsor on Wednesday April 19, after being let go by the Banque Populaire due to her pregnancy. LOIC VENANCE / AFP

Landed by the Banque Populaire, the Frenchwoman Clarisse Crémer announced on Wednesday April 19 in a communicated having found a boat, a team and a sponsor to relaunch, as a mother, with a view to the Vendée Globe 2024.

The 33-year-old sailor has joined the team of Briton Alex Thomson, recent buyer of the ex-Apivia Banque Populaire intended for her, and will take over the helm of this monohull for two years thanks to the partnership of L’Occitane en Provence.

In early February, the skipper, 12e of the last Vendée Globe and mother of a little girl born in November 2022, had announced that she was let go by her sponsor due to her pregnancy.

The banking group has given up looking for another skipper

New qualification rules for the Vendée Globe take into account participation in a series of races upstream, and the Banque Populaire was concerned about the delay accumulated compared to its competitors.

Faced with the scale of the controversy, the French banking group gave up looking for another skipper and sold its boat to Alex Thomson, a regular in the Vendée Globe who set off without team management.

The L’Occitane group, which accompanied Armel Tripon on the last Vendée Globe, joined the project “to promote female leadership in sailing, a competitive world that is still too largely male”explained its general manager in the press release.

“The starting line of the Vendée Globe is still a long way off, and there are still many challenges to be met, but I am putting all my energy into the success of this project to prove that with desire, determination and the right partners, we can make society, business and sport fairer”argued the navigator.

The World with AFP