Before the memory fades, some maritime remarks (editions du recherche midi), It comes out in your bookstores this Thursday, November 21. In this book, Olivier de Kersauson looks back on his incredible career as a sailor. For Paris Matchhe also talks about his romance with his colleague Florence Arthaud – the first French woman to win the Route du Rhum in 1990 – unfortunately died on March 9, 2015 in a helicopter crash in Argentina, at only 57 years old.
A romance recounted in the biopic Flo by Géraldine Danon, released in 2023 and dedicated to the exploits of the famous sailor. However, the rendering is not faithful to reality, according to Olivier de Kersauson: “I did have a love story with Florence, but it has nothing to do with what is told. Florence was excessive, but above all, she was courageous, intelligent, generous. She forgave everything and everyone. A secular saint, a barefoot countess.“
“The people who made the film claim to know her, but they don't know her at all. Do not confuse close friends with bad company. Vanity and lies prosper like never before, today, in politics and in society.“, added the one who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018.
Olivier de Kersauson and Florence Arthaud, an impossible love?
As recalled Paris Match“the flow passes as soon as they meet, in 1978on a pontoon in Saint-Malo, a few days before the start of the first edition of the Route du rhum. The debutante is 21, he is 34.“ Oliver de Kersauson immediately falls under her spell: “She was a little reserved, she didn't like me anymore.“ But over time, this love “turned into deep friendship“. Until the drama of 2015, which will immerse the browser “in deep sorrow“.
Their relationship was very secret. “It was an open secret. A passionate story that no one ever talked about, because Olivier was married at the time,” revealed Kaya Lokay to Gala, she who wrote the book Florence Arthaud secret (released in 2023, Editions de l'Archipel), after meeting the navigator. “During the race, (the first Rhum race still, editor's note) she thinks of him, fights to impress him, the great navigator. And at the finish, he introduces his wife to her. He had never said he was married They continued to see each other for years, then she got tired of waiting for him to divorce and they moved away.”
Olivier de Kersauson was married to Caroline Piloquet-Verne. Together they have a son, Arthur (born 1980). On May 24, 2014, he religiously married Sandra on an atoll in Polynesia, a year after their civil marriage in Brest. He is also the grandfather of Iris and Robert.
