Sitting on the pontoon, in the shade of her boat, the young Clarisse Crémer, 30, still cannot believe it. She hovers on her cloud, looking a little haggard a few days from casting off. She will be one of the six women (a record!) on the starting line of the Vendée Globe on Sunday November 8 for this single-handed, non-stop and unassisted sailing race. The Everest of sailors. The ultimate angst of the pledges. “To be catapulted into this universe is quite rare. And to do so in a team as prestigious as Banque Populaire (defending champion) is even unique. I measure my luck even if my first instinct was to tell myself that I was not legitimate”, blows the young woman who left everything five years ago to live her dream.
Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, the young woman who grew up in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) bathed in the “work until 10 p.m.” atmosphere, as she still laughs. As a result, Clarisse Crémer goes through a model adolescence: Bac S, preparation for “Ginette”, a prestigious Versailles establishment which trains battalions of future engineers. Then it is the HEC route that she chooses. All in all, a profile quite far removed from traditional sea dogs. “I had even created my company with my brother and we were moving towards the dream of the start-up like many of our generation. I think I had at deep inside me a kind of obligation towards my family. But I felt the need to give meaning back. Sailing was just supposed to be a one-year break, it became my new profession”, summarizes Clarisse Crémer.
Com’ in stock!
As often the trigger is an encounter, in this case with the sailor Tanguy Le Turquais, discovered through an associative program. The Parisian got attached, turned her back on the capital and moved to Brittany with him in 2015. Small jobs here and there and a lot of time on the water encouraged her to enroll in 2016 at the French Espoir Championship (7th place) then the Mini-Transat, a race that connects La Rochelle to Martinique via the Canary Islands. On this occasion, she catches the eye of Ronan Lucas, the director of Team Banque Populaire, one of the most respected figures in the industry. And for good reason, she will finish on the podium for her first participation.
Clarisse Crémer will spend 80 days alone on the water
Vincent Curutchet
At the same time, Banque Populaire, one of the biggest sponsors on the board, is in the process of launching a new maxi-catamaran for its favorite sailor, the latest winner of the Vendée Globe, Armel Le Cléac’h. His car should allow the “Jackal” to break new records and carry high his partner who spends 6.5 million euros each year in his sailing project. But when he was launched in the Route du Rhum against his rival François Gabart, the Formula 1 of the seas was stopped dead by an unidentified floating object. The boat capsized and sank off the Azores, taking with it the hopes of the sailor and part of the budget of his shipowner sponsor. A moment of panic because for a few moments, the emergency services had no news from Le Cléac’h. “This event changed all our plans, it’s clear, recognizes Thierry Bouvard, director of sponsorship at Banque Populaire. We quickly decided to rebuild a boat for Armel, but that meant a major change for our Vendée Globe program”.
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With Clarisse Cremer, make way for a new story. “We embarked on a different project and not necessarily a winner. We were looking for someone young. And without consulting each other, we all thought of her,” says Ronan Lucas. The young woman indeed has a sort of 2.0 freshness that fits well with the sponsor’s new lines of communication. She marvelously captures the codes of social networks and captivates a community of followers. She recounts her daily life on board through short videos, records sounds that she sends by WhatsApp to her team, exchanges with the youngest even if it means putting herself on the stage like a real comic book heroine. In short, communication in stock!
“The woman of tomorrow in sailing”
“She’s a great communicator, it’s true. But she’s not the jester either. She’s not going on a cruise. She’s going to give them a hard time”, warns Ronan Lucas who knows that with the team mounted around her, the young woman is armed. She has even compiled a small encyclopaedia, a binder with dozens of files filled in by all the team’s specialists in the event of a problem during her journey, which is to last 80 days. Quite a challenge since she has never spent more than 17 days alone on the water with her boat.
Ronan Lucas, the head of Team Banque Populaire, quickly believed in the potential of Clarisse Cremer
Vincent Curutchet / BPCE
Nevertheless, this image of communicating, Clarisse Crémer does not elude it. She knows that this is also what allowed her to be where she is. That is to say at the start of a race that her husband, a purebred sailor, has never run before. “I also know that Armel is the team’s flagship skipper and that there can’t be two big headliners. But I’m taking my chance, I’m enjoying my project. It’s not a problem for me. to present myself as a kind of marketing product. The rule is that it has to be profitable for everyone. The battle for sponsorship is part of offshore racing”, admits Clarisse Crémer, who has set up her own small structure professional and again receives “a salary of a classic ex-HEC”.
His outspokenness can sometimes clash in the middle where jealousies and mockery are often barely hidden. But never mind. “She’s really the woman of tomorrow in sailing. We’re lucky to work with her. And to think that she’ll be able to annoy a few, I admit that I like it”, laughs Ronan Lucas while taking care to turn around to see if anyone had the misfortune to hear him. Still a little patience, the wave is coming!
Sébastien Pommier, in Les Sables d’Olonne