Style Edit: Richard Mille backs Alexia Barrier’s all-female circumnavigation

Feb 20 , 2026

The Famous Project saw French sailor Alexia Barrier lead the first all-female team to attempt a circumnavigation of the globe, without stopping and without support. The feat was backed by watchmaker Richard Mille. Photo: Handout

The Famous Project saw the French sailor aim for the historic Jules Verne Trophy, during which her multinational 8-member crew were presented with severe technical challenges

A maker of the most technically advanced, boundary-pushing watches, Richard Mille has always worked hand in hand with the leading lights of high-performance sport. In addition to its associations with the luminaries of technically demanding sports, from tennis to golf to athletics, the cutting-edge Swiss luxury watchmaker has forged a close partnership with sports like motor racing, where fractions of a second count and technical mastery is everything. The manufacture not only works with iconic Formula One teams McLaren and Ferrari, but also has its own endurance sports operation, the Richard Mille Racing Team.

The Famous Project’s boat, the Idec Sport. Photo: Alexander Champy-McLean

The company is equally deeply embedded in another sport that combines pioneering technology with exacting individual skills – that of sailing. The brand has its own regatta in the Richard Mille Cup, for example, through which it brings grace and elegance to the seas in a competition for beautiful yachts built before 1939. Now, the brand is supporting a sailing venture that has recently carved out a whole series of world firsts, smashing a few glass ceilings along the way.

The Idec Sport off Ouessant after the Jules Verne Trophy. Photo: Lloyd/Jmliot Images/CIC

The Famous Project saw French sailor Alexia Barrier – veteran of 18 transatlantic voyages, five of them solo – lead the first all-female team to attempt a circumnavigation of the globe, without stopping and without support. Competing for the Jules Verne Trophy – a prize for the fastest circumnavigation, with no restrictions on yacht type or crew size – they sailed a very special boat: the 32-metre maxi-trimaran Idec Sport, which had won the trophy in 2017. Adding to the challenge, none of the eight sailors on board had any experience of crewing a maxi-trimaran.

Captain Alexia Barrier, a prominent name in offshore sailing, launched The Famous Project CIC to demonstrate that gender is not a limiting factor in the sport. Photo: Handout

They departed from Ouessant, off France’s northwest coast, on November 29, running into difficult conditions from the start. Things got really tricky, though, a couple of weeks later, when Idec Sport suffered a mainsail failure approaching the Cape of Good Hope, meaning they had to complete the rest of the journey under severe technical limitations. Then, in the Indian Ocean, the starboard foil was rendered inoperable when a fishing net became tangled in it.

The all-women crew for The Famous Project were British sailors Dee Caffari and Deborah Blair, Dutch sailor Annemieke Bes, Swiss-New Zealand sailor Rebecca Gmuer, Spanish sailor Tamara “Xiquita” Echegoyen, American sailor Molly Lapointe, Australian sailor Stacey Jackson, and French sailor and captain Alexia Barrier. Photo: Alexander Champy-McLean.

Given these equipment challenges, The Famous Project didn’t manage to win the Jules Verne Trophy, but still completed their circumnavigation in 57 days. The achievement is profound: out of more than 30 attempts at the trophy, less than half have even completed the circuit. Moreover, the project realised Barrier’s dream – of leading the first entirely female crew to sail non-stop around the world.