It’s raining cats and dogs in Kiel, as Susann Beucke arrives at the café straight from training. Her hood is pulled low, but her mood is cheerful and relaxed. She recently announced her next adventure: This autumn, she’ll co-skipper the Class40 Alderan with French sailor Sasha Lanièce in the Transat Café L’Or—doublehanded, with double the female power. Lanièce, like Beucke, has launched a female-led offshore sailing initiative. Beucke’s was called This Race is Female, founded four years ago.
Lanièce’s campaign is called Les Déferlantes, “the wave breakers”, a name that channels both power and purpose. “She has a lot of power and energy. She doesn’t just sail because she wants to be successful herself, but because it’s important that women are pushed,” says Susann Beucke, who wants to achieve the same in Germany. Both sailors are tired of being asked, dockside, where the skipper is. “I am the skipper,” Lanièce always replies. “This is my project!”
A data scientist with a PhD earned at just 25, the 33-year-old Lanièce is acutely aware of how few women are represented in tech fields. Her ambition isn’t just to succeed in sailing, but to encourage other women to follow her lead.
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After four years in the Mini 6.50 class, including a 24-hour speed record in the 2023 Mini Transat, Lanièce is stepping up to the Class40. Thanks to the support from her sponsor, Alderan, she has secured her boat for three years. But that’s not all.
She kept her Mini and launched a call for female sailors looking to compete in the next Mini Transat. Karen Menuet is now sailing that boat. In a similar scenario, Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink from Next Generation Boating are financing the Mini-campaign of young regatta sailor Tom Wehde.
Together, Lanièce, Menuet, and Beucke form France’s first all-female racing team—three women, two boats, and one clear goal. It’s also a promising new chapter for Beucke, who had to pause her campaign last fall when her sponsor contract ended. After four intense years, including three editions of the Solitaire du Figaro, it was time for a reset.
“When I had to give up Figaro and I didn’t have another project, I was very sad. I had invested so much and put so much energy into it,” she recalls. After the Tokyo Olympics, she pivoted quickly. From 49FX with Tina Lutz, racing solo in the Silverrudder, then landing a major sponsor in DB Schenker. Everyone wanted a piece of Sanni Beucke, with her bright smile and big dreams.
Beucke had set her sights high: the Vendée Globe 2028. She met Kevin Escoffier on the docks at Lorient, joined his Ocean Race team, and sailed the Cape Town leg. But after that, it was over.
Easing the pressure off the sail
The pressure to perform in the Figaro class, a notoriously difficult proving ground for solo offshore sailors, was immense. A year after the Olympics, she entered her first Solitaire du Figaro. It’s a grueling solo race, even for the French pros: the Atlantic, strong tides, the Irish Sea—all alone. Beucke took it on three times, but never achieved the breakthrough result she was chasing. Maybe it was too much, too fast.
