CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Four years ago, Isabelle Autissier became the first woman to start and finish the BOC single-handed round-the-world sailing race.
Last month, in her second try at what many regard as the ultimate challenge in the nautical world, she sailed into Cape Town after a month at sea to became the first woman to win a leg in the BOC race.
And tomorrow, when she sails from here bound for Sydney, Australia -- the second of four legs, it should mean over a month at sea -- she will be the prohibitive favorite to become the first woman to win the global race.
That's because she leaves here not with the standard lead measured in hours, but with one measured in days -- five of them to be exact -- the result of her stunning victory in the opening leg which started on Sept. 17 in Charleston, S.C., where the BOC, sponsored by a British financial company by the same name, is scheduled to end next May.
As is so often the case in these events, Ms. Autissier's win was a matter of luck created by skill. When the other 26 competitors in the race headed south out of Charleston, she headed east.
"Yes, I was a bit worried," she said. "I thought maybe they knew something that I didn't."
It turned out that she knew something that they didn't. She had read the lack of trade winds properly, made her distance to the east in the north, and was happily headed down the coast of Africa while her competitors were struggling across the Atlantic.
In the south Atlantic, boats are usually forced into a detour to go around a a persistent high pressure area. But when Ms. Autissier reached there, a front bisected the high, providing a rare direct route across.
She took it. When the rest of the boats got there over a day later the front was gone. That's what gave the leader her five-day advantage.
"I was in the right place at the right moment," she said. "I suppose now I have a chance to win, if nothing breaks, if the boat is right, but there is still a lot of sailing to do. Anything could happen."
Ms. Autissier speaks not with modesty, but with the type of balanced, straightforward realism one must have to climb into a sailboat all alone and take off around the world at top speed.
She was talking on her 60-foot boat -- Charentes 2 -- an exotic creation that, docked amid what would normally be the yachting splendor of the Royal Cape Yacht Club, looked like a Formula One race car in a suburban mall parking lot.
Unlike many who reach these heights of sailing success, Ms. Autissier did not grow up in this world of docks and masts, halyards and spinnakers, Docksiders and foul weather gear. A ++ native of Paris, she was introduced to sailing on family holidays.
"When I was about 7 or 8, my family had a little dinghy," she said. "I used to play around in that with my sisters on vacations to Brittany. At the time I dreamed about sailing, but I never knew it would lead to this."
Ms. Autissier put aside childish things when it came time for her university education. She studied marine engineering, but on the commercial end of things, working on fish processing.
Her schooling finished, her career under way, she turned again to those childhood dreams, building a 30-foot boat. With its huge coastline, sailing in France is mostly of the ocean variety, and soon she was taking her vessel across to England, then to America.
Eight years ago, at the age of 30, she entered her first sailing race, an across-the-Atlantic single-handed affair. She surprised her competitors by finishing third. She surprised herself by how much she liked it.
"I really liked it a lot," she said. "There is that feeling of trying to push the boat to go as fast as it can, but not too fast so that something breaks. It is 50 percent physical, 50 percent intellectual. I liked trying to find that balance."
Other races followed. She bought a boat to sail in the 1990 BOC race, finishing seventh in the 60-foot category in 139 sailing days. After that, sailing became a full-time job.
Sponsored by a French bank as well as the region around the Atlantic coast town of La Rochelle where she currently lives, Ms. Autissier decided that she needed a new boat for this year's BOC race.
Working with a designer, she built her $1 million sloop from scratch, concentrating on the details such as a curved chart table so the maps lie flat when the boat is heeling over, a movable bowsprit to allow adjustment of spinnakers, separate interior areas that remain dry, as well as getting all the controls for every aspect of the boat, including its adjustable keel, accessible in the cockpit.
With two crew members, she took the boat from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn, taking eight days off the record for that sail, a mark that's usually advanced by hours.
Then she knew Charentes 2 was ready for the round-the-world race, though she discounts the importance of the boat.
"I would say this race is 10 percent boat speed and 90 percent tactics and strategy," she said.
The BOC race, like the Olympics, is held every four years. It is a challenge that lasts eight to nine months. Boats are on the water about four weeks for each of the four legs. Between each stage, sailors have about one month to rest and make any repairs on their craft.
All alone out at sea, Ms. Autissier grabs sleep in half-hour or hour intervals as the boat sails on autopilot.
Ms. Autissier, who grew up with three sisters and no brothers, does not pay that much attention to the fact that she is a woman in a male-dominate world. She lets her sailing speak for itself.
"If this inspires other women to sail, that is nice. I like that," she said. "But that is not why I do this. I am happy when I am at sea."