© Team Malizia / Antoine Auriol
Interview with Cole Brauer, Team Malizia
“Right now is the perfect time to figure out who you truly are and what you want to be.”
Cole Brauer was the first American woman to sail solo and non-stop around the world in 2023-2024 as part of the Global Solo Challenge at the age of 29 – and she finished the race in second place after 26,000 nautical miles and 130 days at sea. I spoke to her about boys' names, team spirit and what body size has to do with the Fastnet Rock.
Today we arranged a video call. Cole is still on the ferry from the UK. We set off cheerfully, with her mobile phone held up in front of her face. In the background, I can see her leaving the ferry and entering a car as we talk.
Cole Brauer
Team Mailizia, co-skipper
Hi Mr Brauer … I mean, your first name, Cole, is more commonly given to boys in America. Could you help me clear up my confusion?
(laughs) Well, yes. My parents had a very weird sense of humour. In the ’90s, they decided to give both my sister and me male names, thinking it would make it easier for us to get jobs in any industry that we could ever want. This has actually helped me get jobs on paper before. But then I’ve shown up for the job and got fired because they thought they were hiring a man with the same experience, not a woman.
Oh really? What kind of jobs were those?
I started out doing captain jobs on boats, and yeah, there was definitely a lack of people who weren’t afraid to tell me that they didn’t want to hire a woman. I respect that, at least they were honest with me.
Does it help to have a more male-dominated name? You’re obviously a woman. I have three daughters myself, but it never occurred to me to name them Peter, Paul or Max.
Yeah, I’ve definitely thought about it. If I were to have children, I would probably give them man’s names. I think that helps. You can go either way, but to me, Cole Brauer – that sounds quite strong. You couldn’t get any stronger than that. For a woman, it’s great. I didn’t mind my name growing up. Sometimes, when you’re growing up, some people would want a softer name. But I was already quite a tomboy. So for me, it actually fit quite well. My sister’s name is Dalton, which is also a strong male name. So it didn’t feel like I was an outcast. If she had been called Sarah or Jennifer, for example, and I had been called Cole, it wouldn’t have fit, would it?
Cole in the cab, the interviewer in the office
You were the first American woman to sail solo around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. You were also the youngest competitor and came second. That's impressive, but apparently a lot of people didn't think you could do it?
For sure! I came up with it a while ago. I think that was like 2019 or something. It was pre-Covid, and then I started campaigning on that idea. Then, in 2022, the Class 40 boat I was sailing on lost its mast and everything went out the window. I put everything on hold and didn't think too much about it until 2023. And then it just kind of went on from there.
© colebraueroceanracing
“We want to encourage people who don’t come from a sailing background to be able to do these things too. We want to encourage people to fight for what they believe in. If you believe you can do it, then you should.”
Cole Brauer
There are always those classic heroine narratives between males and females. ‘Against all odds, she persevered.’ ‘She proved that small women can achieve great things.’ ‘She made history – and she looks so good doing it’, and stuff like that. You may think these narratives are good or bad, but either way, they oversimplify things. How do you deal with that?
I think it’s really interesting because, when we first started chatting about the campaign with my team, we were trying to figure out what we really wanted to say. We came up with some basic ideas about what we wanted to say to the general public. We wanted to emphasise that this is about the first American woman to sail solo. We want to push for this. We want to encourage people who don’t come from a sailing background to be able to do these things too. We want to encourage people to fight for what they believe in. If you believe you can do it, then you should. That was kind of our campaign.
Then we let all the media sources do their own take. We felt that was actually the better approach than fully controlling the message. We wanted to see where it would go. We wanted to see how people would interpret it. And people really liked the idea of, ‘Oh, wow, you are really small’. Personally, I don't think of myself as small.
© colebraueroceanracing
You are 1.55 tall.
The ‘small factor’ was actually quite interesting for me because I didn’t expect people to latch onto it so much. But I thought it was just because I was a woman. That would resonate with half the population. However, it seems that my size resonates with a lot of people. I think people look at me and would never think I could achieve anything. But I look at myself and think I can do anything. I've never seen myself as tiny or small. I see myself as normal. I know how to do everything: I know how to go to the grocery store, I know how to walk down the street, I went to college. I did everything that everyone else did. I’ve never felt limited in any way. But other people look at me like I’m limited.
I think many people look look at women and think they are limited, don’t they? It sounds like it was often quite difficult for you to get ahead.
It’s really tricky because, when you're growing up, you don’t really believe that you’re any different to your male counterparts. My parents raised me to be myself and to be strong. We had friends, guys and women, and I didn’t look at them differently. But then, when we got older and started to venture out into the world, things started to change. I started to wonder why. At school, I was still stronger than most of the boys. So it didn’t really resonate with me that I was different because of something I couldn’t change. You know, like being a woman or being small.
© colebraueroceanracing / Team Malizia
“So I think women have many strengths, especially when it comes to boating. I think we have a ridiculous amount of strengths.”
Cole Brauer
The commander of the German’s Navy sail training ship ‘Gorch Fock’, a three-masted barque, told me that he has noticed that it is mostly women who climb to the top yards. For one thing, it’s easier if you're a bit shorter. But these women are simply tough. It’s not because they have to be tough. They simply are, in comparison to the male sailors.
I can confidently say that women have a higher pain tolerance than most men. There’s this idea that men are very strong, and they are, but women are strong in a different way. We have to learn how to build on and work with the things we are good at. Like our mental capacity, memory and ability to do things we enjoy. One thing I talk to people about is object permanence. In psychology, it refers to the ability to recognise that an object is still there even when it is hidden or moved. A lot of men will forget that an object was there. Women will be like, ‘What are you talking about? It's right there! You have to lift the jacket to see it.’ Women never lose object permanence, whereas men seem to.
So I think women have many strengths, especially when it comes to boating. I think we have a ridiculous amount of strengths. The hardest part was when I entered the professional world and people wanted to pay me less just because I’m a woman. All these excuses, like, ‘Oh, well, you eat less.’ ‘You don't have a family.’ ‘You're smaller, so we should pay you less.’ I heard every excuse in the book as to why they wanted to pay me less. But throughout my upbringing, I had always been treated exactly the same. So it was quite weird to go into the professional world and have to fight for this.
© colebrauerracing
© colebrauerracing
Isn’t it just annoying to have to talk about the same thing over and over again?
Yeah, it’s definitely annoying. It’s definitely one of those things I’ve been talking about for years … oh God …12 years. I would say it’s getting better, but actually, I don’t know if it is. Maybe I just want to take over the world and people are treating me better as a result.
You are now part of Team Malizia. You’ll be working with Boris Herrmann, Francesca Clapcich, Justine Mettraux, Will Harris and Holly Cova and many others, who are building a diverse team. So far you’ve been travelling alone and have become quite famous, you have half a million followers on Instagram, but being in a team is something else. It’s like joining a family. Are you the lonesome cowgirl on board?
Maybe a vagabond. Actually, joining the team was really nice because I didn’t know them that much. I’m not one to jump off cliffs randomly. I like to study and learn before doing anything crazy. I think so many people saw me in the around the world race and didn’t realise that I had been training for it. Everyone just assumed I was the crazy girl that popped out of nowhere. But they hadn’t seen that I had been there for quite a long time getting set up. It’s kind of what I’m doing with Malizia. I feel like I’m getting set up, and I’m in the learning process with training wheels right now. They have been amazing in helping me learn and develop my skills. It’s a super complicated boat, and I’ve never really been on a boat like this before.
They’ve been amazing at walking me through the steps and letting me me play. Most teams would never, you know, let someone like me just come on the boat and push buttons and play with things. And so it’s an incredible honor to be a part of this team. I wish other people could get that type of experience. You can read all the textbooks in the world and take as many notes as possible, but you don't realise how powerful these boats are until you have the ropes in your hands and push the keel button to lift it up. When Boris and Will gave me the opportunity to play with the flight control buttons and feel the boat lift up, I realised just how powerful this is.
Wasn’t there a mentorship by Boris Herrmann as part of ‘Project Magenta’?
So it kind of happened at the same time. Boris and Holly had contacted me in March 2024. They told me that they would love me to be part of the team, wherever I felt I fit in. I have ties with the Magenta Project, which was developing a mentorship programme at the time. That's how the connection happened. They brought me on and then we added Magenta to encourage other women to feel comfortable, like this is a real deal.
© Team Malizia
The boat is sailed by a team. Can the Malizia 'Seaexplorer' be adjusted to accommodate the different body types of the team members?
We cut the pedestal because I was working the pit and sail trim, so I was on the coffee grinder a lot. I think the boat's still really tricky for me to sail because I can't see out of the boat at all.
You can’t see out?
I sail blind a lot! It’s very like it. When we did the course recently, on the final day, I worked in the pit. Will [Harris] looked over at me. He said, ‘You can't see out, can you?’ I said, ‘No ...’ We had been hardcore racing for six days. And Francesca was like, ‘Of course she can't, she's much shorter than all of us, she sees nothing.’ The whole time, I was running around during manoeuvres throwing headsets at everyone, and everyone was asking, ‘Why do we have to use these stupid headsets?’ And I had been trying to explain that if you go to the bow without a headset, I can't see you. I'm the one controlling the sail, so probably wearing a headset is appropriate. Now we wear the headsets for every manoeuvre because I literally cannot see otherwise.
And when you finished, you were the only one saying, ‘Oh, hey, are we already there? I didn't realise. I can't see anything’?
It happened at Fastnet Rock. We were going around it at daybreak and Will asked, ‘What do you think?’ And I was like, ‘Think of what? What do you mean?’ I crawled outside and looked up at the rock, it was right there – wow, I've never seen it before! But I still didn't tell him at that point that I couldn’t see anything from inside the boat.
’Hey Cole, come out of the cellar, you have to see this ...!’
(laughs) The boat is amazing because it has much space for manoeuvres. However, I’m very short and can’t reach the ceiling in Malizia.
“Having such a diverse and international team is great, because the French have dominated the world for so long.”
Cole Brauer
© colebrauerracing
The Team Biotherm arrived in Kiel on Saturday night, and I was there the next morning to say hello. The team invited me to get on board, so I said, 'Okay, really? Great!' The ceiling was very low and the area with the bunks was narrow. The team said that was typical of Paul: ‘It's not comfortable, but that's just the way it is and you have to deal with it.’
© Kiel-Marketing
I like the smaller boats for sure. But we are so lucky to have so much space, as our manoeuvres can be quite good. When you’re doing manoeuvres with lots of people in the cockpit who can’t stand up, it’s very uncomfortable. If I were alone on a boat, I would still design it around myself. I It changes the way you sail, and as a smaller person, you can sail it much more comfortably. Nevertheless, I like sailing Herrmann’s boat. It’s set up really well for sailing with a team. I kind of look like a child, and it doesn’t look like I’m a pro sailor because the whole cockpit is so big. But the pit area is really organised in a way that makes sense.
I think there are 12 nations represented in Team Malizia, there are a lot of women on board, it’s a really strong team. How important do you think diverse teams are?
Having such a diverse and international team is great, because the French have dominated the world for so long. The advantage of having a diverse team is that we get so many different ideas for so many different people. It never made sense to me why you would only want 50 percent of the population’s perspective. For example, if your shore crew team only consisted of men, you would only get 50 percent of a perspective, whereas if you had women from different countries on board too, you would get 100 percent. That’s what Boris and the whole Malizia team are trying to do with the Ocean Race Europe: we’re very conscious of who’s on board because we want to be flexible. We want many different cultures, ideas and ways of sailing a boat, not just one way, because that’s not how life works. We people collaborate very well together. So why should we change that when we go offshore and only include one subsection of the population on the boat?
© Team Malizia
Many women are increasingly organising themselves in business networks. What is the situation in the sailing business?
I think the sailing world can be quite difficult for women. Having places for women to connect with each other, like communities, would have been helpful when I was first starting out. I didn’t feel like there was a community where I could talk about things like ‘I want to change this’, ‘I want to do this’, or ‘I have this idea’. I didn't feel like the conversation was actually open, but I think it’s improved a lot since then. Even in my small sailing community in Newport, Rhode Island, in the U.S., we have a really good group of women that are sailing in the professional world.
When one of the women comes forward and says, ‘Hey, I feel like we need a raise. We should get paid more’, we band together and say, ‘Hey, I feel like we need a raise. We should get paid more’. It’s so comforting because you don’t feel alone. You have a community of people who understand what it’s like to feel less than and who support you in fighting for what you believe in or deserve. They’re like your little cheerleaders, making sure you ask the right questions and get what you deserve.
In an interview, you mentioned that Ellen MacArthur is a very interesting person to you, particularly because of her book ‘Taking on the World’. What inspired you so much?
I first read her book in 2018 while I was on a delivery. I was working for a boat captain at the time, and I remember I started crying at the moment that she was at the award ceremony, and she’s 24 years old. And she’s crying. A woman on the main stage crying. The press were awful to her. The guy who won was mean, too. It just broke my heart. She was only 24 – so young – and had done such an amazing job. She almost won, you know, and the media treated her so poorly, saying she was weak for showing emotion. Something inside me just clenched. Like, we have to change that. We have to allow not just women, but men too, to show true emotion because true emotion is how we relate to others. It’s how you relate to the mainstream population. It’s how you relate to children, to older people, you know? We’re all human here. That moment was really influential for me because she was showing the true emotion of the pain she was feeling from losing first place after giving her all. She gave it her all right until the end. It was such a beautiful moment. I cried during that scene in the book, and there’s something about it.
“So I really, truly believe that you don’t have to be prepared for life right now, you can just enjoy it.”
Cole Brauer
© colebraueroceanracing
Two of my daughters have just finished school. What is your advice on how they should start out in life?
The one thing I would say is that you don’t have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life right now, and you shouldn’t kill yourself with the idea that you have to. I’ve seen a lot of my friends and my sister believe that. ‘Oh, I need to go to school for this.’ ‘Once I've done that, that's it.’ But actually, you don’t. I mean, I was an artist, I trained to be a doctor, and now I’m a professional sailor.
So I really, truly believe that you don’t have to be prepared for life right now, you can just enjoy it. Because one day, you’re going to have to pay lots of bills, phone bills, car bills, house bills, you’re going to have needy kids and so on. Right now is the perfect time to just play, enjoy life, and figure out who you truly are and what you want to be. This is the moment.
© Kiel-Marketing GmbH – Interview: Ralf Löwe / sonofasailor.de
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