Isabelle Autissier

French professional sailor and winner of the 1994-'95 Gold (Solo) Race; 1994-95 BOC Challenge (dismasted on Leg 2, boat lost, withdrew) and the 1997-98 Whitbread Round The World Race, legs 8 and 9. Prior to that, she and two crew members sailed her Open 60, PRB in The Gold Cup, a race from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn.

Autissier has completed two-and-a-half circumnavigations -The BOC Challenge in 1990-1991 and the last Vendee Globe. During The 1994-1995 BOC Challenge (now called the Around Alone race), Autissier won Leg 1 by more than five days. In a risky move that took her northeast of the fleet, she finished five days ahead of her nearest competitor, astounding the world. Her luck changed during Leg 2, when she was dismasted deep in the Roaring Forties, five days after the start in Cape Town. After jury-rigging a mast from her spinnaker pole, she managed to reach tiny Kerguelen Island, where resident French scientists helped her step a replacement mast her shore crew had found in Reunion.