In the early hours of Sunday morning under a full moon, Alexia sailed into the waters off the coast of Brittany and crossed the finish line at the Sables d’Olonne to complete the 9th edition of the Vendée Globe race. After 11 days, 17 hours and 3 minutes at sea, she arrived earlier than expected. On Sunday February 28th, as the sun rose into a brilliant blue sky, she sailed her IMOCA into port, full of determination although somewhat weakened by an accident she had endured just a few days before.
Much more than a solo skipper, Alexia Barrier is a sailor at the service of science. A 41-year-old French athlete, she became a natural addition to Ulysse Nardin’s “Ulysses” when she announced her first-ever participation in the Vendée Globe in November 2020.
By the age of 20 she had already participated in fifteen trans-Atlantic races, including five solo challenges. She has been sailing the seas since she was fifteen years old and has covered over 200,000 nautical miles since. In 2009 he became the first seaman to gather scientific data from the surface of the water in order to aliment ongoing research.
For this Vendée Globe race, with the backing of her NGO 4myplanet, she committed herself to undertaking oceanographic research and actively contributed to the observation of the ocean. In doing this, she championed two causes personally dear to her: environmental changes and the defence of women’s rights.