Introduction
Florence Arthaud (28 October 1957 – 9 March 2015) was a French sailor from Boulogne-Billancourt. 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. 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.
In 1990, Arthaud established a new world record for the fastest solo crossing of the North Atlantic, beating the previous record by two days.
In 2014, she took part in Sea Shepherd's "GrindStop" campaign against pilot-whale whaling in the Faroe Islands.
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.