Ocean cruising, in Kurun’s wake
During the first half of the 20th century, with the exception of participants in transatlantic races, few recreational sailing boats set out to cross the oceans purely for the enjoyment of cruising. Especially with small crews. The adventure of America’s Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail solo around the world – between 1895 and 1898 on board the Spray – will not be repeated until much later by his compatriot Harry Pidgeon, a former small farmer then cowboy, lumberjack and photographer, who discovers sailing at the age of 50, builds a 10m yawl by himself (Islander) and also completes a round-the-world voyage, between 1921 and 1925 (he even goes on to do this a second time, still sailing solo, on board the same boat, between 1932 and 1937).
Family voyages are not any more popular: the Norwegians Erling and Julie Tambs, who set out from Oslo in 1928 on board a 12m cutter (Teddy, Colin Archer plan launched in 1882) to sail to New Zealand, stand out as an exceptional case. After arriving in Auckland three years later – with two children born en route – they wrote a successful book about this cruise (The cruise of the Teddy), but without inspiring many others to follow them.
The first couple to complete a full circumnavigation are American: after falling under the charm of Slocum’s story, Edith and Roger Strout build their own boat Igdrasil, a replica of the Spray, before setting sail in 1934 from Florida for Panama and the endless treasures of Oceania. Then sailing around Australia and the Indian Ocean’s archipelagos, they return in 1937, so enchanted by this life on the water that they immediately set off again for two more years, heading for Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska.
A yacht designed for voyaging
In French ports, there are few candidates for embarking on voyages despite the extensive press coverage of Alain Gerbault’s round-the-world trip, which began in Cannes in April 1923 and ended at Le Havre in July 1929 on board Firecrest, a 12m cutter with a deck designed by Dixon Kemp. Punctuated by a stopover for around one year in New York, during which the sailor returns to France, this voyage passing through the Panama Canal made the former aviator and tennis champion a star in the public’s eyes, but did not win over many sailing enthusiasts who were quick to joke about his record slow pace (101 days from Gibraltar to the United States, with an average speed of just over one knot on the direct route), his basic navigation errors and the pompous tone he used to tell his story.
Recreational boaters feel more of a connection with the discrete Louis Bernicot, who completed a perfectly managed solo round-the-world voyage, which began in August 1936 in Carantec and ended less than two years later, after passing via the Strait of Magellan. The former merchant navy captain is in his own way a pioneer: the first long-distance cruiser to set sail on board a yacht specially designed for this purpose. Drawing on his experience, Bernicot carefully thought about the characteristics that would be best suited to these demands before appointing the architect Talma Bertrand to follow Anahita’s plans to create a 12m cutter with a helm station and a small fixed engine, which will be built by Moguérou in Carantec (future Jézéquel yard). Anahita, a robust boat that is easy to operate solo, with good handling at sea, shows the validity of this approach. This lesson will be retained later on by Jacques-Yves Le Toumelin who, before setting sail in 1949, spends a lot of time on the Kurun’s design… with a radically different outcome, as his vision of the ideal boat for long-distance cruising is inspired more by traditional fishing boats than recreational sailing yachts.
Two-handed then solo
Born in 1920 in Paris, Jacques-Yves initially only spends time by the sea during his holidays in Croisic, where his grandmother has a hotel. Despite the family influence – his father is a master mariner – this student, who is not very studious and even a bit of a rebel, shows little interest in a career on the sea and fails both his entrance exam for the Naval Academy and his examinations at the École de la Navigation Maritime in Nantes.
Allergic to large ships made out of “scrap iron”, he likes to spend time on board with Croisic’s fishermen and sees the sea more as a way of escaping a world that he is barely interested in other than for work. In 1940, at the time of the German invasion, he thinks about fleeing by boat – to go to the other side of the world, not to England… – but in the end, he is left champing at the bit in Croisic. During the years of the occupation, he lives like a recluse, works occasionally doing some fishing and manages to build an 8.60m sailing yacht, the Tonnerre, which is unfortunately destroyed in 1945 when the German troops retreat, while he was getting ready to finally embark on his grand voyage.
After the war, the tenacious Le Toumelin asks the architect Henri Dervin to design a 10m boat for him that scrupulously respects his specifications. Built at the Bihoré yard by the carpenter Jean Moullec, Kurun (“Thunder” in Breton) features a strong displacement (over 8 tons), a voluminous hull and a gaffsail. A boat that is already “out of fashion” when it is launched, in its owner’s words, but one that suits him very well. The only downside when he sets off on September 19, 1949: the presence of a crew member on board, as demanded by his parents, who do not want to see him leave on his own… As Le Toumelin has a strong character, and even a certain dislike of other people, this forced cohabitation ends in a fight and the crew member has to disembark in Morocco… immediately replaced by another crewmate, also recruited by his parents through a classified ad in the magazine Le Yacht.
Jacques-Yves Le Toumelin, for better or worse, teams up with this new arrival, nearly leaves him in Panama, but in the end keeps him on board all the way through to Tahiti, where he finally gets rid of him, continuing with his route on his own, just like he had always wanted. With or without a crew member, Le Toumelin does not go overboard with his stopovers: no more than four across the entire Pacific (Galapagos, Marquesas Islands, Tahiti and Bora Bora) and then just three more (Port-Moresby, Cocos Keeling Islands, Reunion Island) before reaching South Africa, and climbing back up the Atlantic in almost one go, with just one stop in Saint Helena. His return to Croisic, on July 7, 1952, is celebrated by thousands of people, and his book, Kurun Around The World, published the following year by Flammarion, is a great success. This story, with precise technical aspects and details of his beautiful encounters during his stopovers, will become like a bible for many enthusiasts and inspire future voyages.
From the marne to the canals of patagonia
Another key figure behind the growing popularity of long-distance cruising in this decade is Marcel Bardiaux, to some extent the opposite of Le Toumelin: no history of sailing in his family and a propensity to shaking up traditions rather than respecting them. Born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1910, the son of a postman, orphaned at the age of eight, Marcel first learns how to be a plumber with a tradesman before setting up his own business at 17 years old on the banks of the Marne, then capitalizing on the rapid growth in outdoor activities to build camping tents, kayaks and canoes. He promotes his products during competitions, becoming one of Europe’s top kayakers, and even embarks on – between 1930 and 1931 – a canoeing tour of Europe, paddling thousands of kilometers on the Rhine, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Canal du Midi. Called up to serve in 1939, then a prisoner of war, he escapes and resumes his civil activities, while dreaming of sailing adventures.
In 1943, he obtains the plan for a 9m cutter from Henri Dervin, changes everything, or almost everything – extended hull, modified keel, larger superstructures, new sheer lines, different structure, etc. – and sets about working to build Les 4 vents with all the materials he can salvage. Six years later, in January 1950, he can finally sail down the Seine and do a few months of sea tests, traveling from Le Havre to Arcachon. At the time, he does not know anything about navigation, but this is not the type of detail that can stop this man who is used to learning on the fly and incredibly ingenious.
This is followed by a round-the-world voyage taking nearly eight years, including a number of impressive stopovers – more than 500 – and sometimes incredible adventures. All while following a groundbreaking route: after reaching South America, Bardiaux passes Cape Horn from east to west, sails through the Canals of Patagonia, then explores the Chilean coastline before setting sail for the islands of Oceania, New Zealand and the Indian Ocean, even allowing himself a detour to visit Brazil, the West Indies and the East Coast of the United States, before returning to Arcachon in July 1958. Released for the boat show, his book 4 Winds of Adventure (Editions Flammarion) is an instant bestseller, with regular reprints.
New perspective on ocean cruising
As a result of their contrasting styles, these two sailors will help reach a vast audience: recreational boat users mastering navigation practices can easily identify with Le Toumelin, while the general public sees, through Bardiaux’s adventures, that the sea is accessible for everyone. In addition to these two renowned solo sailors, we have a talented go-between in the person of Annie van de Wiele, from Belgium, who returns to Zeebrugge in 1953 following a two-year round-the-world voyage accompanied by her husband, Louis, a friend and Tallow – the couple’s dog – on board Omoo, a 13.8m steel ketch designed by Louis. The story of her journey, Pénélope était du voyage (Flammarion, 1954), is still one of the most beautiful invitations to embark on a voyage like this. Her contribution is particularly significant as, throughout the 20th century, this book is the main vehicle for sharing the desire to travel: sailors in the 50s set out because they had read Slocum and his successors, while those in the following decades will cast off after reading Le Toumelin, Bardiaux and Van de Wiele.
It is not by chance that another leading sailor, Jean Gau, the son of a wine-grower from Hérault, who completes a solo circumnavigation between 1953 and 1957 on board the Tahiti Ketch Atom – and goes on to complete a second in 1968, also on board Atom – has been virtually forgotten from the annals of boating history, because he never found the time to talk about his voyages (however, one of his friends, Jean Bussières, wrote a biography about him, published by EMOM in 1979, the year when he passed away). Jean Gau’s legacy may be linked more to the large number of Tahiti Ketch units that were then built by the Pfister yard (which became Sirvent in 1975) in Aigues-Mortes.
The end of the decade also sees a certain crossover between practices, as illustrated by the voyage completed by Eloise, Fernand Hervé’s old boat: with a new owner, it wins the Giraglia in 1958… then embarks on a cruise to the West Indies and Pacific. It is also in 1958 that a penniless shipwreck survivor arrives in France with a story (Vagabond of the South Seas, published by Flammarion in 1960) that will once again turn the spotlight on long-distance sailing, sharing the adventures of Bernard Moitessier between the Strait of Malacca and the Caribbean seas on board his two boats, which were both lost, the Marie-Thérèse and Marie-Thérèse II. This book is a success thanks to word-of-mouth in boat clubs and the support of some key figures from the press – Jean-Michel Barrault and Pierre Lavat – but Moitessier does not wait for this before thinking about a new boat. In 1959, he contacts the architect Jean Knocker to create what will become in 1962 the legendary Joshua, a 12m Norwegian ketch, built – at cost price – out of steel by Joseph Fricaud, the founder of the Meta yard, located at the time in Chauffailles. Several dozen more or less faithful replicas of the Joshua will then be launched, and the boat will remain the benchmark for sailing to the other side of the world for around a decade, before the growing demand for this program encourages yards and architects to look at more modern approaches for ocean cruisers.
