{"id":162450,"date":"2026-04-08T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/?p=162450"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:25:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T08:25:43","slug":"the-famous-project-sets-a-new-benchmark-for-all-female-circumnavigation-we-all-got-used-to-helming-at-40-knots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/events-2\/the-famous-project-sets-a-new-benchmark-for-all-female-circumnavigation-we-all-got-used-to-helming-at-40-knots-162450","title":{"rendered":"How the Famous Project set a new benchmark for all-female circumnavigation"},"content":"Today, Monday 26 January 2026, the eight-person crew aboard The Famous Project<\/a> became the first all-female team to sail non-stop around the world.\r\n\r\nCrossing the finish line between Ushant and the Lizard at 1200hrs, The Famous Project completed their non-stop circumnavigation in 57d 22h 20m after setting off on 29 November, 2025. This does not break any existing official records for the Jules Verne Trophy<\/a>, but sets a groundbreaking benchmark time as the first successful all-female bid to complete the course.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_161833\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Alexia Barrier and crew of The Famous Project CIC: Dee Caffari, Annemieke Bes, Deborah Blair, Molly LaPointe, T\u00e1mara Echegoyen, Stacey Jackson and Rebecca Gm\u00fcr Hornell. Photo: Lloyd \/ Jmliot Images \/ CIC[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThis is also the first time an all-female crew has sailed a maxi multihull around the world. The only previous all-female attempt on the record -\u2013 Tracy Edwards<\/a>\u2019 Royal & Sun Alliance<\/em> \u2013 dismasted in the Southern Ocean. In total just 14 female sailors have ever attempted a Jules Verne Trophy circumnavigation.\r\n\r\nThe Famous Project was masterminded and skippered by former Vend\u00e9e Globe<\/a> sailor Alexia Barrier, together with British co-skipper Dee Caffari<\/a>, and an international crew of Annemieke Bes, Rebecca Gm\u00fcr Hornell, Deborah Blair, Molly LaPointe, T\u00e1mara Echegoyen and Stacey Jackson.\r\n\r\nThey were sailing the former Idec Sport<\/em>, the previous holder of the Jules Verne Trophy record<\/a> at 40d 23h 30m \u2013 a record which was broken only yesterday<\/a> by Thomas Coville and crew on Sodebo Ultim<\/em><\/a>.\r\n

The Famous Project's challenge<\/h2>\r\nIdec Sport is a non-foiling maxi trimaran, and now a 20-year-old design. From the outset the crew were faced with gear troubles - including steering issues and mainsail halyard problems.\r\n\r\nLater an entanglement with fishing gear caused damage and delamination to their starboard foil, so the team continued for the second half of their round the world voyage with the foil out of use. \"\u201cWe went from 30 knots to 5 knots!\u201d Alexia described the incident. \u201cWe put the boat in reverse and were able to remove the large net, but the foil remained stuck in the down position for a while.\u201d It later transpired that the foil had been damaged beyond repair.\r\n\r\nTheir biggest blow came in late January, when their mainsail tore in half in strong winds. Although they managed to secure it to the second reefing point, 45-knot winds in Storm Ingrid further shredded the damaged sail<\/a>, leaving them with little more than a headboard and the wingmast, plus headsails, for the final miles.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_161830\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"630\"]\"\" Under barely any mainsail, The Famous Project CIC aboard the IDEC Sport crosses the finish line off Ouessant after completing their Jules Verne Trophy non-stop crewed round-the-world record bid, in Brest on January 26, 2026. Photo: Lloyd \/ Jmliot Images \/ CIC[\/caption]\r\n\r\nDespite being behind the outright record from early on their circumnavigation, and seeking shelter in the lee of islands at several points, the team never once suggested they were considering retiring. Though the bid has attracted some critics, their goal was unwavering: to become the first all-female Jules Verne Trophy challengers, and to set a benchmark time for the next.\r\n\r\nMany of the Royal & Sun Alliance crew went on to become leading figures in ocean racing, and tens of thousands of collective miles of maxi multihull oceans racing experience have now been gained by the Famous Project crew.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_161831\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"226\"]\"\" The Famous Project's Alexia Barrier and Dee Caffari,embrace after finishing the Jules Verne Trophy on January 26, 2026. Photo: Lloyd \/ Jmliot Images \/ CIC[\/caption]\r\n

History makers<\/h2>\r\nShortly before the finish, Dee Caffari posted a quote by former US President Theodore Roosevelt on Facebook: \u201cIt is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong woman [Dee\u2019s edit] stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.\r\n\r\n\"The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds..\r\n\r\n\"Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.\u201d\r\n\r\nSee more at thefamousproject.io<\/a> and we'll report further when we hear from the crew.","excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mast on the trimaran The Famous Project CIC towers as high as a 10-story building. At 110ft, or 33.5m, it is a carbon skyscraper that carries the power of this massive yacht, the 250m2 mainsail. And this engine is suspended on a chunk of metal, a mainsail hook, which by a system of levers locks the sail in position onto the rig. Two weeks after the crew of the 103ft tri set out on their Jules Verne Trophy bid, this vital component broke. The locking mechanism failed, the hook at times stubbornly sticking in position. Deep in the South Atlantic, crew Bex Gm\u00fcr Hornell climbed the giant mast \u2013 first inside the tube, as if scaling a pitch black bell tower, then outside to diagnose the problem. But the hook could not be reliably fixed, instead requiring coaxing, fiddling and force at every mainsail adjustment. And so the crew faced an impossible decision: continue into the Southern Ocean with a compromised boat, knowing record pace had almost certainly slipped from their grasp? Or stop in Cape Town, return to France, and pray that they could start again. They continued, pointing south, pushing on and on until they arrived back at Ushant on 26 January. In doing so they did not set a Jules Verne Trophy record, but they did something else altogether. The pioneering Famous Project The Famous Project is the brainchild of French former Vend\u00e9e Globe skipper Alexia Barrier. In 2022 Barrier announced plans for an all-female tilt at the non-stop, around the world record. No all-female crew had ever completed a Jules Verne Trophy bid. In 1998 Tracy Edwards attempted it with Royal & SunAlliance, but dismasted in the Southern Ocean. Only a handful of women have crewed on the world-girdling multihulls alongside men: Dona Bertarelli completed the course with her team on Spindrift, but never claimed the record. Adrienne Cahalan navigated Steve Fossett\u2019s 125ft cat Cheyenne to what was a record time of 58 days in 2004, but Fossett\u2019s campaign was ineligible for the Trophy. Ellen MacArthur skippered a Jules Verne attempt which ended with a broken mast, before setting her solo record. Barrier\u2019s project to plug this glaring gap in sailing history swiftly gained momentum. The campaign attracted hundreds of applications, the crew training on a MOD 70 before taking delivery of IDEC Sport, at the time the boat that held the Jules Verne. They worked with coaches including Brian Thompson, who set the record in 2012. And Barrier locked in enough budget \u2013 just \u2013 to make an attempt in the winter of 2025\/26. One of Barrier\u2019s first appointments was co-skipper Dee Caffari. Caffari brought experience not only of six previous circumnavigations, but skippering teams with very diverse levels of experience, from the Global Challenge to the Volvo Ocean Race. \u201cMy job was to make life easier for Alexia,\u201d Caffari explains. \u201cThis was her project, her brainchild, and I was to help facilitate it to happen. She asked my opinion. I challenged her a …Continue reading »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":162466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3117,1540,140,980],"tags":[3116,864,250,1633],"review_manufacturer":[],"acf":[],"introduction":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162469,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162450\/revisions\/162469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162450"},{"taxonomy":"review_manufacturer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review_manufacturer?post=162450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}