Florence Arthaud

French sailor (skipper), born to Jacques Arthaud, director of the Arthaud publishing house, which specialized in mountain books and is based in Grenoble. In 1974, she was victim of a car accident (coma, paralysis, 6 months hospital) and then decided to learn sailing with his boyfriend, navigator Jean-Claude Parisis, stopping suddenly her medical studies. In 1978,she finished 11th of the "Route du Rhum", a solo race she won twelve years later, in 1990 (like Franck Cammas in 2010) and the "Transpacific" in 1997 with Bruno Peyron. She is considered the greatest female skipper along with Ellen MacArthur. In 2015, she died in a collision between two helicopters (in Argentina) while she was participating in a reality TV program presented by her friend Louis Bodin.

Known as "La petite fiancée de l'Atlantique," she was nicknamed "Mimine" by other sailors.

She had a daughter, Marie (born in 1993), with sailor Loîc Lingois, who prefers horses. Divorced, she remarried Eric Charpentier in 2005.