Atlantic when I heard the news that Eric Tabarly had been lost at sea. I was listen- ing to the BBC and they mentioned that a ‘famous French sailor’ had been washed overboard from his yacht while sailing in the Irish Sea, but they didn’t mention any name. I had to listen for a few agonising minutes to the world news, weather reports and cricket scores before they returned to the story and broke the news that Tabarly was gone.
When I arrived in the Azores and ran into some French sailors it was as if a god was gone. I knew that Eric Tabarly had a place in sailors’ hearts but I was just coming to realise how much of a place he had occupied. He alone, with a bit of Moitessier hovering, had inspired genera- tions of young French sailors to find them- selves in sailing, and those sailors went on to make magic with the sport.
Bruno Peyron and his crew became the first to lap the planet under sail in less than 90 days. Michel Desjoyeux won the Vendée Globe… twice. François Gabart sailed his massive trimaran singlehanded around the world in a record time of 42d 16h while Francis Joyon and his (all- French) team hold the record for the fastest non-stop circumnavigation; the Trophée Jules-Verne.
Here is one story that may illustrate why the French now dominate the offshore sail- ing scene. Joyon had just raced the Transat crossing the same waters that Francis Chichester had sailed all those years earlier. Now he was in New York looking for a
IF IT CAN SLIDE BETTER, ROLL BETTER
OR FLY BETTER…
Marc Pajot steps ashore after wresting the transatlantic record off his former skipper Eric Tabarly in 1981 on Elf Aquitaine. The following year Pajot and Elf would win the 1982 Route du Rhum, the 1972 FD Olympic silver medal crew famously sailing round in circles in the dark off Pointe-à-Pitre so as to cross the finish in daylight for the TV
place to anchor his massive trimaran for a few days but his boat, Idec Sport, is huge and wide and there really was no ideal place to keep her so he made a quick decision. He went ashore, bought some eggs and bananas, returned to the boat, bade his crew farewell and sailed alone back across the Atlantic. Très formidable. Here is how it works in France these days. The sailors are sport superstars and sponsors like sport superstars.
Think about this. Thomas Coville, who for a while held the record for the
fastest singlehanded circumnavigation, is sponsored by a company that makes frozen pizzas. Well, to be fair they make a lot more than frozen pizzas these days but back when they first started their sponsor- ship of Thomas they were a much smaller company. They hitched their fortune to a sailing campaign and both Coville’s sailing career and Sodebo, the frozen pizza place, have thrived. Can you imagine a British company like Goodfella’s Pizza getting into the sailing space? Neither can I. All of this starts to point to the fact that the French now dominate offshore sailing and the UK, despite the best efforts of Alex Thomson and Dee Caffari among others, is lagging.
I knew this was going to happen years ago when I went to the start of the Vendée Globe. Les Sables-d’Olonne was dreary and cold but in the days leading up to the start a million ordinary French men and women descended on the town to see the boats and to meet the sailors. Moms and Pops stood shoulder to shoulder in a cold drizzle for hours, just for a chance to get onto the pontoons and to get closer to the boats. Kids argued among themselves and chewed on baguettes lathered with brie. Young tattooed men smoking Gauloise and sporting punk hairdos were also in the crowds. I saw a large, brawny man with a tiny poodle under his arm waiting for his chance to meet a Vendée Globe skipper. The ordinary and the extraordinary follow sailing in France and when you get a cul- tural moment like that history happens.
BETTER
IT. SEAHORSE 43
KEYSTONE/ALAMY
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