MONTREAL — At 17, Jasmine Pernot is set to become the youngest skipper and one of only three women leading crews in Quebec’s new offshore sailing race, hoping to show other young women they belong at the helm. Jasmine Pernot will lead a crew of seven in the inaugural St-Laurent 400, a 400-nautical-mile race that begins in Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River on Quebec’s North Shore, on Aug. 6 and finishes in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St.
“Everyone has been looking forward to this race because it’s a format we haven’t had yet in Quebec,” Pernot said Thursday before a training session at the Deux-Montagnes sailing club, northwest of Montreal. Unlike shorter races where crews return to shore at the end of the day, competitors will spend more than 24 consecutive hours at sea. “We’re used to spending a day on the water and then coming back to the marina at night,” she said.
“This time, we’ll be racing for more than 24 hours straight.” The teenager from Thurso, a town east of Gatineau in western Quebec, never expected sailing to become such a big part of her life. She discovered the sport almost by chance after enrolling in Femina Jeunesse, a Quebec program that offers free sailing training each year to girls between the ages of 15 and 17. “My parents only found out afterward that they’d have to drive me to Quebec City four weekends in a row for sailing lessons,” she said with a laugh.
“They weren’t very happy at first, but when they see what I’ve been able to accomplish now, it was worth it.” Without the program, she believes she might never have stepped into a sailing school. “It’s something you watch other people do, but having the confidence to try it yourself when you didn’t grow up around it is something else.” Pernot was introduced to mentor Daniel Bérubé through the sailing school where she trained. She credits him with helping turn an ambitious idea into reality.
“I had this crazy idea of doing this race. It was just a crazy idea, and he’s the one who made it possible.” Bérubé will serve as her second-in-command and tactician during the race, advising on wind patterns and currents. He will also be the only man aboard.
The rest of Pernot’s crew is made up entirely of women, including a fellow Femina Jeunesse graduate, her best friend, a sailor she has often raced against, a friend she met while sailing in Bermuda, and Bérubé’s…
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