Eric Tabarly, remembrance of a legend 50 years after winning the Ostar

Fifty years ago, Eric Tabarly, considered the greatest French sailor of all time, won the 1964 Ostar aboard the 44-foot ketch Pen Duick II, taking 27 days, three hours and 56 minutes. When he arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, (the destination of the mythical race organized by the Observer, starting in Plymouth), the then 32-year-old Tabarly did not know he had won: he had not used the radio during the entire crossing.

HERO IN FRANCE
In addition, the autopilot had abandoned him on the eighth day of sailing, forcing him to take grueling shifts at the helm. In France he became a legend, so much so that President De Gaulle awarded him the “Legion d’Honneur”, highest recognition for the transalpines. And to think that Eric initially refused because the ceremony coincided with the repainting day of his boat! When De Gaulle renewed his invitation, he wrote him that he would be honored by his presence, “as long as the tide allowed.”

A SERIES OF SUCCESSES AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
In 1967 he set a record that is still unbeaten: together with a crew that included the very young Olivier de Kersauson, he won, aboard the Pen Duick III (innovative 17-and-a-half-foot aluminum schooner) every regatta he entered, including Fastnet and Sydney-Hobart. In ’68 he launched on trimarans, but his adventure aboard the Pen Duick IV crashed in a race against an off-course freighter. Disposing of the disappointment, he wants to confront the Pacific and tunes up the Pen Duick V: overpowered, ultralight and with mobile liquid ballast wins the solo transpacific from San Francisco to Tokyo in 39 days.

THE ILL-FATED WHITBREAD OF ’73

In 1973 Tabarly aboard the Pen Duick VI (a 22.25-meter ketch) took part in the Whitbread, the round-the-world stage race that has now become the Volvo Ocean Race. A challenge that Eric will lose, due to numerous breakdowns: the engine breaks down almost immediately, the shaft gives way during the first stage, from Portsmouth to Cape Town. Tabarly has to head for Brazil to retrieve another tree, which, however, turns out to be five feet too long… Despite these problems, he prevails in the second stage. But a second shaft break, during the Cape Horn stage, interrupted all dreams of glory.

THE 1976 OSTAR TRIUMPH
Tabarly does not give up, and even launches a new, seemingly impossible challenge: he entered the 1976 Ostar. Carrying solo a 22-meter Marconi ketch designed to be operated by fourteen people? Pure madness, whispers on the docks. Tabarly, as is his wont, does not listen and prepares by modifying the deck so that sheets and halyards are sent back to the winches in the cockpit, develops a hydro-generator system to be combined with solar panels, makes reefers on the genoa, but most importantly uses the stocking to lower the spi without it touching the water. The regatta turned out to be hell: out of 120 boats that started, 40 retired and two sailors disappeared. It is feared, in the absence of any communication, that Tabarly, who clashed with as many as five depressions, also got the worst of it. Instead, at dawn on the twenty-third day of the regatta, out of the fog in front of Newport, the Pen Duick VI appears, first of all. is the triumph that enshrines him in the Olympus of sailing. In later years this ketch would become a real school for sailors of the caliber of Titouan Lamazou, Olivier Petit, Jean Le Cam, and Alain Collet.

THE LAST REGATTAS AND DEATH IN THE WAVES

In ’86 he called for help for the first time, it was during the Route du Rhum where he was sinking aboard the maxi trimaran Cote d’Or. In ’97 aboard an Open 60, Aquitaine Innovation, he won the Transat Jaques Vabre, setting a record for racing longevity. Off Milford Haven, while sailing on his beloved Pen Duick I (his true love, designed by William Fife III in 1898) in 1998, he fell into the water and disappeared in the waves. Adieu.