She covered a little over 4,000 nautical miles, or nearly 7,500 kilometers in her 6.5-metre sailboat, the Nolita, while competing in the Mini Transat race and finishing 52nd in her class.

The Mini class is considered a sandpit for offshore sailing activities, and many of today's most innovative yachts and most successful solo sailors have emerged from the class.

The Mini Transat race itself is one of the world's most legendary solo sailing events. Competitors sail 6.5-meter yachts, subject to extremely strict safety requirements.

Even more startlingly, tech such as phones, smart devices and even the internet as a whole is barred; only paper charts and a slimmed-down GPS that shows location and manually entered waypoints only may be used.

Qualifying for the race alone is a major achievement: Each year only 90 participants are selected, having accumulated enough qualification miles and completed a mandatory 1,000-nautical-mile solo sail.

Talts crossed the finish line at 3:20 a.m. local time in Guadeloupe Wednesday, while the two-stage ocean crossing took 18 days, 17 hours and 20 minutes to complete.

"Many people do an MBA, I decided to complete a solo Atlantic crossing," she explained as her rationale.

"For me, fighting myself was much harder than taking care of the boat," she added, though that said, the Nolita was in good shape at the end of the race too.

"It's hard for me to describe what I'm feeling right now. Getting here… it's so different from everything that happened at sea. It was a long journey, sometimes very hard, but I also got a lot of sleep," she noted.

"Honestly, I had no particular expectations, and it was hard to imagine what it means to spend so many days alone on the ocean. But in the end everything went well — and I did it!"

"Most of all I hope that in the future others will come who will take on this adventure," she continued.

She had come across the Mini class at home in Estonia.

"In Estonia, some people have sailed in the Mini class before, and I was very curious to learn more about solo sailing. I started talking to them and quite quickly, once I heard about the Mini community, I realized this was something I had to experience. After two years of qualification races, it was precisely this Mini-class family that fueled my desire to take part," she continued, noting the training was harder than the actual event.

Her journey began on 21 September in Les Sables d'Olonne, France, aiming for the first-stage finish in the Canary Islands. However, Talts suffered from severe seasickness early on, while the Nolita's bowsprit snapped, leaving her missing two sails.

By day three, however, she had adjusted to the environment, installed a spare bowsprit and was able to find her rhythm again, only for stage one to be canceled thanks to Hurricane Gabrielle. Competitors were directed to take shelter on the Portuguese coast, where Anna-Liisa, with the help of her father Andres and his wife Kristi Talts, restored her boat to racing condition. She then continued on her own to the Canary Islands to be ready for the second stage.

Stage two started October 25 in Santa Cruz de La Palma, with the destination the French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, nearly 5,000 kilometers away.

Finding suitable trade winds and the optimal route was the key to success during the ocean crossing, she added.

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