Florence Arthaud

Florence Arthaud

Florence Arthaud in 2009
Personal information
Nickname(s) "La petite fiancée de l'Atlantique"
Nationality French
Born (1957-10-28)28 October 1957
Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Died 9 March 2015(2015-03-09) (aged 57)
Villa Castelli, La Rioja Province, Argentina

Florence Arthaud (28 October 1957 – 9 March 2015) was a French sailor from Boulogne-Billancourt.[1] She was the daughter of Jacques Arthaud, director of the Arthaud publishing house.

Biography

At age 17, she was in a serious car accident, which resulted in paralysis. She was hospitalized for six months and her recovery took two years.[2] She had a daughter with Loïc Lingois, a French professional sailor. In 1990, she won the Route du Rhum for Pierre 1er. In 1997, she won the Transpacific with Bruno Peyron.[3]

In 1990, Arthaud established a new world record for the fastest solo crossing of the North Atlantic, beating the previous record by two days.[4]

In 2014, she took part in Sea Shepherd's "GrindStop" campaign against pilot-whale whaling in the Faroe Islands.[5]

Death

In 2015, Arthaud took part in Dropped, a reality television show on TF1 in which sportspeople were transported by helicopters into the wilderness. During filming on 9 March 2015, she died in a helicopter collision in Argentina along with nine other people, two of whom were fellow contestants.[6]

References

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