Media coverage of recreational boating

At the dawn of the 20th century’s final decade, French recreational boating has never enjoyed such visibility. The television show Thalassa has just reached prime time on France 3, boasting millions of viewers and a 10% market share. In December, Thalassa broadcasts its weekly episode live from the Paris Boat Show, which has recently moved from the CNIT in La Défense to the vast halls of Porte de Versailles (1989). New models, new practices, innovations, marinas and sailing schools are all covered by Georges Pernoud, who created the show in 1975, and his team of journalists. 

Major national newspapers like Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro and Les Échos also use the opportunity offered by the Show to report on the “water rush”, with leading regional titles like Ouest France following suit. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of boats registered climbs 40% to over one million by the end of the century. From motorboating to dinghy sailing, cruising, board sports and kayaking, water-based activities attract more than four million enthusiasts, representing around 8% of the French population, across all ages.

Naturally, the specialist press benefits from this wave of enthusiasm. The extensive “Special Show” issues of the main magazines, featuring pages of adverts, achieve record sales. According to a study by the center for strategic analysis in 2008, the boat press sees steady growth between 1990 and 2000, expanding from 18 to 28 titles, including all frequencies and regional publications, with annual sales climbing from 6.5 million copies to 11 million. 

The competition between the industry’s leaders helps drive the growth in distribution levels. Bateaux, founded in 1958, Neptune Yachting (born out of the merger between Neptune Nautisme, created in 1963, and Cahiers du Yachting, founded 1951) and Voiles et Voiliers, launched in 1971, compete to keep their readers engaged. While it is stabilizing, the distribution of each of these three titles regularly exceeds – sometimes by a significant amount – 100,000 copies each month. And new titles continue to emerge: Moteur Boat (over 40,000 copies) is launched in 1988. Followed by Voile Magazine (same subscription model) in 1995.  The short-lived Au Large will release just a few issues at the end of 1989 before returning to port. But the newsstands overflow with publications such as Wind (launched in 1977), dedicated to windsurfing and board sports, Mer et Bateaux and Yachting Classique for luxury units, Le Chasse-Marée (no.1 in 1980), covering maritime traditions and culture, similar to Loisirs Nautiques (created in 1972), which focused on amateur boat building…

Boating seems to have secured its place at the forefront of mainstream news by the end of the century. Especially as the public’s attention is constantly attracted by the spectacular development of major boat events. At the end of 1989, Philippe Jeantot successfully created the Vendée Globe Challenge, the first true solo, non-stop, unassisted round-the-world race. This event gains significant attention at the turn of the final decade. However, at the time of the invention of what will quickly become the biggest sailing event for the whole of France, its communication budget would seem laughable today. While it makes up half of the organization’s total budget, it is still less than 1.5 million euros. 

In the age of visual media, Jeantot understood that it was absolutely vital for him to engage the main television channels. So, he equipped each of the 13 daring skippers signed up to this adventure – including himself – with a video camera, intending to collect the tapes at each of the mandatory checkpoints along the route. At one point, selling exclusive coverage rights to a television channel is a possibility. The recently launched channel Cinq is interested. But the competitors are opposed to this. A communications agency comes up with a brilliant idea, now standard for major sailing races: creating an image bank before departure, with content available to all the television stations, making it possible to illustrate stories and audio interviews during the race. Let’s not forget that at the time, satellite communication is still in its infancy. The skippers share their updates from the other side of the world using long-distance SSB transmitters or amateur radio sets.

The first Vendée Globe is widely covered in the media. Television channels, radio stations, newspapers, general and specialist magazines all competed to provide exhaustive coverage of this event. Some skippers had signed exclusive deals with certain newspapers, while others had weekly appointments with radio stations. One competitor even flied the flag of the weekly news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur…

This was not the first time, in fact far from it, that the media captivated public attention with the exploits of sailors heading out to see. Back in 1923, the socialite Alain Gerbault made the first solo crossing of the Atlantic, from east to west. It took him 101 days to sail from Gibraltar to New York. Which, give or take a few days, is the time it takes the winner of the Vendée Globe to sail around the world 60 years later. L’Illustration, Le Petit Parisien and Le Matin, three of the biggest media titles at the time, devoted their front pages to this achievement. Gerbault published his logbook in Le Petit Parisien before turning it into a book published by Grasset.

41 years later, Éric Tabarly’s victory in the English Single-Handed Transatlantic Race not only made the front page of France-Soir, Paris-Match and Neptune Nautisme, but also headlined the television news. And things were just getting started. In 1967, the launch and first tacks of the schooner Pen Duick III were covered in a major feature on the 8pm news of the first ORTF channel (the second was created in 1964), before the black boat’s outstanding series of victories mobilized the entire French media. 

From the first crewed round-the-world race in 1973, the dramatic Single-Handed Transatlantic Race in 1976, the first Route du Rhum in 1978, with Alain Colas’ disappearance and the first two boats coming in 98 seconds apart, the live broadcast of the finish of the first Double-Handed Transatlantic Race on the 8pm news following a thrilling duel and the victory of the trimaran VSD to Tabarly’s incredible Atlantic record in 1980, all these events meant that French readers and audiences were used to receiving regular updates from the sea.

Race organizers worked tirelessly to develop their event’s communications. For instance, in 1979, Gérard Petipas came up with the idea to equip each competitor in the Double-Handed Transatlantic Race with an Argos satellite beacon, making it possible to share updates on the positions of the various crews at least once a day, providing the press with a ranking that was as accurate as it was consistent. A major pioneering step at the time. In the wake of this, the radio station Europe 1 produced a dedicated daily show covering the race. 

In 1982, during the crewed transatlantic race from La Rochelle to New Orleans, the electronics company Thomson sponsored the deployment of an advanced communication system. In the heart of Paris, an inflatable structure called the “Thomson Bubble” welcomed journalists around the clock. For the first time, one of the race boats, with a crew made up of print and radio journalists, managed to transmit images from out at sea. 

Some already missed the glorious uncertainty of the years of silence and mystery. They could not stand in the way of the irresistible progress that would soon enable live video interviews from the ends of the earth. But there was no doubt that this intense and increasingly sophisticated media coverage also inspired vocations and a desire to sail.

From this perspective, the decade from 1990 to 2000 saw waves of opportunities to capture the public’s interest. Shortly after the first Vendée Globe ended with Titouan Lamazou’s Victory, the solo Figaro race was won by a boat flying the flag of Le Nouvel Observateur, while the 1990 Route du Rhum saw Florence Arthaud triumphant. The young adventurer Florence Arthaud made the headlines of the 8pm news show and the covers of all the major magazines. Barely three years later, Bruno Peyron and his crew cemented the Jules Verne Trophy’s place in history by sailing around the globe non-stop in less than 80 days. Better still, they managed to transmit by satellite the portraits of the five exhausted crew members as they passed Cape Horn. In 1994, New Zealand’s Peter Blake and Britain’s Robin Knox Johnston cut this record to 74 days, before Olivier de Kersauson, an inimitable TV presenter with RTL in his civilian life, brought it down to 71 days in 1997. 

In the meantime, the terrible 1996-1997 Vendée Globe was widely covered by the media, with the dramatic rescues of three competitors and the disappearance of one of these incredible crazy skippers.

Lastly, in 1998, the death at sea of the French hero Éric Tabarly, one of the fathers of the sailing revolution, once again turned the spotlight on the sea, and sailing was once again widely covered in the media.

During this pivotal decade, recreational boating, at least in terms of “exploits”, successfully reached the top of the pyramid of media topics, across all specialties. However, some highlighted the paradoxes involved with this triumph. Thalassa was still the only television show of its kind, while three major channels offered weekly shows on cars. And the reports on recreational boating were becoming increasingly rare, with its host swearing that he lost part of his audience every time he tried to interest viewers in sailing and motor boating. Similarly, and almost imperceptibly at first, the specialist press embarked on a decline that would only accelerate in the 21st century.

There was no shortage of explanations: the crisis at the start of the decade severely affected the recreational boat industry. While Le Monde enthused about Philippe Stark’s daring yacht designs at the 1988 Boat Show, this leading newspaper featured the following headline four years later: “Gloom and doom for the recreational boat market”. 

In 1995, the daily Les Échos devoted pages to Jeanneau’s takeover by its great rival Bénéteau, followed by the acquisition of Wauquiez in 1997, while noting that these consolidations illustrated the challenges facing this sector. Bénéteau, the world’s number one sailing yacht builder, floated on the stock market in 1984, and since then, the economic and financial press has closely monitored the twists and turns involved with this company’s growth, like an economic barometer for the whole boat industry.

And then a new phenomenon emerged: the boating population was aging. In 1992, a study conducted in Finistère found that 58% of boat owners were over 50 years old, with this figure rising to 80% in 2012. Practices were changing. For peace of mind during short trips or long journeys at sea, the children of the “baby boomers” preferred the thrills of board sports in all their forms or the convenience of weekly charters in exotic destinations.

A cycle seemed to be coming to an end. The 21st century promised unparalleled technological advances in all areas of boating, from construction methods to satellite positioning and mobile communications. The reign of the internet and social media is coming. But, with easier access and even more spectacular events, the evolving world of recreational boats will continue to captivate the media and fascinate the public.