Growing up sailing in the Bay of Islands, Rebecca Gmuer Hornell had dreams of circumnavigating the globe from a young age.
However, she never expected her first voyage around the world would be a non-stop, record-setting journey.
Last month, the 25-year-old was part of the eight-strong crew ofThe Famous Project CIC, who became the first all-female crew to complete a non-stop lap of the planet unassisted, completing the journey in 57 days, 21 hours and 20 minutes aboard maxi trimaran IDEC SPORT.
“I went into it pretty blindly. The longest I’d been at sea before this was 23 days. So, I doubled that and some,” she tells the Herald.
“I think maybe the naivety was good. But I did learn a lot about myself during the journey, which I expected. It was a really cool challenge mentally and physically.”
Gmuer Hornell sailed alongside Alexia Barrier (France), Dee Caffari (UK), Annemieke Bes (Netherlands), Deborah Blair (UK), Molly LaPointe (US/Italy), Támara Echegoyen (Spain) and Stacey Jackson (Australia).
Sailing unassisted meant the team had to fend for themselves when trouble struck on the open ocean, with no support vessels to provide spare parts or the like.
“We had a lot of technical difficulties along the way. We had some steering issues, which we had to overcome and some sail issues – we had a giant hole in our mainsail [and] for the last thousand miles we almost had no main.
Rebecca Gmuer Hornell and The Famous Project CIC crew had plenty thrown their way in their journey around the globe. Photo / Robin Christol
“They were all very hard challenges to come over mentally and physically.”
The crew were almost forced to abandon their attempt entirely around South Africa, due to a broken halyard lock.
They were able to continue, but the damage ended their hopes of winning the Jules Verne Trophy awarded for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by any type of yacht with no restrictions on the size of the crew.
“We decided that we were going to carry on and we changed our goals because we knew that we weren’t going to be able to break the current record, but we were still be able to set the all-female record.”
The team operated in shifts of three hours on deck, three hours off throughout the journey; a watch system that ensured a fresher body was coming on deck every hour.
It also meant there were sailors rostered on opposite watches. Gmuer Hornell said she didn’t see Australian crewmate Stacey Jackson “for most of the trip” because one was going on deck when the other was coming off.
Since 1993, the Jules Verne Trophy has been claimed 10 times – nine of those by French skippers. Kiwi Sir Peter Blake and British sailor Robin Knox-Johnson’s effort on ENZA New Zealand in 1994 of 74 days, 22 hours and 17 minutes was the only other successful record attempt.
A new record was set in early 2026, as the Sodebo Ultim 3 crew skippered by French sailor Thomas Coville crossed the finish line in 40 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes to break the previous record by just under 13 hours.
British sailor Tracy Edwards and her 10-member female crew were the first to attempt the feat 27 years ago, but were forced to abandon their voyage.
Gmuer Hornell said it was tough for the team to change their mindset from beating the previous record and it was something that some members of the crew struggled with.
“Sailing around the world is like a hit-and-miss thing, not everyone finishes and it’s quite a hard thing to finish,” she said.
“But I think it’s a really cool thing to have finally ticked off for women in sailing. Growing up, I had a few role models in offshore sailing like Keryn McMaster and watching them actually achieving things like that was really beneficial for me in my career, someone to look up to.
“Hopefully now the group of us eight has been able to do that for other women in the sport and we need more women in offshore sailing. So hopefully we can inspire a younger generation who are maybe sailing in Optimists or Lasers right now and hopefully they can see what we’ve done and do something similar.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.
