Neptune didn’t want Éric Tabarly to be able to get away from the waves one day and put his bag on the ground for good. So, one night in June 1998, the god of the oceans took advantage of a brutal heeling blow from Pen Duick, in the Irish Sea, to seize the most famous of French navigators. The man who, through his many victories around the world, endeared ocean racing to the general public.
Figurehead of a whole generation of skippers, Kersauson, Colas, Lamazou and so many others, Tabarly was also a precursor. In particular, he played the pioneers in the rise of multihulls, predicted the development of foils, equipped one of his boats with a depleted uranium keel. Some said he was taciturn, he was simply Breton. On June 29, 1976, when he had just won the English transatlantic Plymouth-Newport solo in the worst conditions imaginable – storms, persistent fog, autopilot failure, hand injuries – a journalist asked him how he managed to pilot a boat designed for a crew of 14 sailors. The answer had rocketed, laconic, accompanied by a small mischievous smile: “It’s work. »
Like dad. In fact, Pen Duick VI, a monohull 22 meters in length, built in metal and rigged as a ketch, was a monster of power, capable of facing the strongest winds. Today, nearly fifty years after this legendary transatlantic race, the tall black sailboat will be back in service. With Tabarly at the helm. Or rather “a” Tabarly. At 38 years old, Marie, Eric’s only daughter, will participate in the Ocean Globe Race. This crewed around the world race, which will start next September, claims its affiliation with the famous Whitbread contested in 1973, in which Pen Duick VI took part. The test will take place “old fashioned”, without electronic instruments, but with a sextant. To be precisely located in the middle of an ocean thanks to the stars and to scholarly calculations implies knowing the exact time. “In terms of celestial navigation, every second of error is four nautical miles off our geographical position and you can quickly get lost,” says the one who became captain of Pen Duick VI three years ago. , after devoting his life to horses for a long time.
When embarking on this long-term adventure, Marie Tabarly will be wearing a Superocean Heritage watch signed Breitling, the watchmaking house of which she has become a partner. And it’s no coincidence: “I always saw my father with his Breitling on his wrist. I only knew him with that one,” she says. Pen Duick VI, Tabarly, Breitling, no doubt Neptune will follow the race with interest…§
