From her land at the tip of Brittany, Marie Tabarly spoke to the magazine Oceanpublished by West France and the fourth issue of which has just been published. The Pen Duick saga, her father, the Ocean Globe Race, the crew, the climate and the environment, her association, her passions… Discover a sailor like no other.
After eight months of racing around the world with a crew, 145 days at sea in four stages, Pretty Duick VI wins the Ocean Globe Race in real time. How did you experience it?
I am proud and happy for the boat. Pretty Duick VI had everything to win. So there was no other option but to take it. However, to win a race, you have to finish it, keep the boat and the crew at their maximum potential. Over eight months of racing, I promise you that the effort is long!
The Ocean Globe Race takes up the concept of the Whitbread, the first crewed race around the world created in 1973 for which your father, Éric Tabarly, had built Pretty Duick VI. Was doing this race obvious?
At first, I didn’t want to do it. I was still very young captain of the boat. Taking on the responsibility of taking twelve people to the deep South is not easy. I had never been there. But, at some point, I stopped making excuses when I was dying to do it. A race around the world is something to think about. It’s a huge project. You have to find a lot of money, recruit a crew, train them, prepare the boat. Leaving for eight months requires a lot of sacrifices.
Your project is unique in that you called for applications through your association Elemen’terre, to constitute your crew. However, you know sailors who have sailed on Pretty Duick VI…
I didn’t want to go with people I knew. I wanted to expand the network I had, to start again with something new, with a blank slate, even with the pros. I started crew selection in 2022. I put an ad on Facebook : I must have had 170 complete files. And nearly 300 incompletes! I did 60 video interviews and 38 at sea selection. 18 spent the winter of 2022-2023 on the boat. 16 left on the tour. The rest of the crew were professionals.
On the Ocean Globe Race you managed a team of 24 people who didn’t know each other. How did you bring the crew together?
We sailed a lot in the winter of 2022-2023. We really went for the difficult conditions. Because you don’t train for a world tour by touring Glénan in August. We scratched the floor on the Atlantic. We took time together, and that’s also why things worked well between us. They are great human beings, open, caring, intelligent in discussion. People who see people for who they really are and not the projection of what they have from the other. There was empathy on board, and a big dose of humor!
How did you choose them?
It’s simple. I wanted to know if I wanted to spend time with them. Whether he sails or not doesn’t matter because we can teach them that. I could have taken great rock stars, but I preferred to highlight the human side more than the technical side. And then Pretty Duick VI is not a boat on which we arrive and say: Me, I know
. When you gybe with two 70 kg poles, and 350 m spinnakers2, we quickly understand that there is no one position more important than another. Mutual assistance and cohesion of the crew are essential. I preferred to take people like Franck, who have almost never sailed in their life. But who are great human beings and know very well how to put their ego aside to learn. Franck has done the two legs of the South and he is one of the best helmsmen. They’re great people. In two years, we have never had a shouting match, no tension. Never ! It’s crazy stuff.
This race around the world also carries the message of your association Elemen’terre project whose ambition is to raise public awareness of environmental and societal issues by taking projects on board Pretty Duick VI. What does it consist of?
The Elemen’Terre Project is a think-tank floating, a place of reflection and awareness that uses art and sport as allegories to the challenges that surround us. A sharing space to open dialogue, to try experiments to change things. The idea is to create links with projects whose common denominator, each time, is Pretty Duick VI. I am not an environmentalist or a scientist, but I can put people in a network to enable them to carry out their project or provide knowledge. This can be expeditions with documentaries, round tables, conferences, shows, artistic performances… When, for a week, we invite on board Jean-François Clervois (French engineer and astronaut at the space agency European) who talks about environment with Nicolas Hulot (former minister of ecological transition) for an hour, the exchange is high-level. And the rendering distributed for free on the Net.
During these eight months around the world on the oceans, have you been confronted with any weather phenomena that could be linked to climate change?
Certain phenomena raise questions for us. We had a lot of anticyclones in the deep South. Unusual weather during this period (between November and December 2023). But one of the catastrophic consequences of this disruption is the proliferation of sargassum. The problem is not only concentrated around the Antilles but across the entire Atlantic. They already go up to the Azores in winter. I’ve never seen so many this year. Football fields! And they arrive here. They are suffocating the oceans.
The Ocean Globe race is a race without modern technology, without computers, without satellite GPS, with boats dating from before 1988. A somewhat old-fashioned crew race for which you regret the lack of media coverage. For what ?
We win the race. Given the response and the enormous engagement rate we had on social networks, we made a lot of people dream last winter. Social media statistics show that the project is partly superior to those of Imoca or Ultim, unfortunately journalists hardly talk about it. But how do we do it? Without the media, there is no money. So no sponsor. I am not against Imoca, Class 40 or Figaro races. But only having solo or duo races is a shame. Runners must be allowed to have other alternatives. I’m not saying that we should all navigate by sextant. Nor that I am against performance or carbon. I’m just saying that we need more diversity and that we have the choice to do things differently.
You say that there are very few crewed races, should we invent new ones for heritage boats like Pretty Duick VI which, like the entire Pen Duick fleet, is in the process of being classified as a historic monument?
There is an incredible demand from people who want to race and crew sail. There are races, notably those of the RORC (Royan ocean racing club) but they receive little media coverage and attract more owners’ boats. The question of how to keep old racing boats alive?
arises. It will also be used for IMOCAs with daggerboards. Perhaps there is a new media/economic system to be found…
Is it complicated to be a female skipper in the sailing world and especially captain of a legendary boat like Pretty Duick VI ?
Being a female captain is no more complicated than being a woman in society. Even if I probably didn’t see certain things because I was so focused on making people forget that I was the daughter of. But when someone told me one day, in a Parisian salon while I was looking for financing: You’re the captain, but who’s really in charge on the boat?
my blood only made one turn! There is work to be done before achieving equality between men and women, but no more in sailing than in the rest of society.
What are your short-term plans?
Take time. We came back exhausted from traveling around the world. We have been to places in the world that we are almost alone in having seen but the return to reality is very violent. I am very happy to be back, to have found my family, to spend time with my horses, my motorcycle. I love Brittany, the smells, the walks. I’m enjoying my time on land because it’s been two years since I left.
You will comment on the departure of Yannick Bestaven, winner of the last Vendée Globe, for the start of the race on November 10. Does this solo world tour aboard an Imoca tempt you?
I would like to but I know I won’t go. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but spending four years on the Imoca circuit doesn’t suit me at all. Even if I think it’s a great boat and I loved doing a double with Louis Duc during the Transat Jacques Vabre 2021.
What actually suits you?
Doing things on the side suits me very well. Everything I do doesn’t feel like anyone else at the moment.
Like your passion for horse riding?
In horse riding, it’s a bit the same thing. Everyone was competing but it didn’t suit me. I became an equine behaviorist almost 20 years ago and I was able to fully flourish while being, again, a little on the fringes of what was being done.
Discover the magazine Ocean 4 by clicking here.
