Yvan Bourgnon is a French skipper, winner of a triple win in 1995: Mini-Fastnet, Transgascogne and Mini-Transat. In 1997, he won the Transat Jacques Vabre with his brother. In 2006, he broke the 24-hour record, sailing 610 miles.
In October 2013, the skipper, who is used to ocean races, decided to take on a new challenge: to complete the first round-the-world voyage in a non-inhabitable sailing boat. It is on board of a 6 meters long racing catamaran, without assistance and without GPS, that the courageous sailor decided to sail 50 000 km. He explains " With my long experience of offshore sailing with the biggest multihulls and of regatta sailing in sport catamarans for years, I wanted to combine the two in a unique challenge. It was when I rounded Cape Horn, in a sport catamaran in January 2012, with 100 km/h wind that I understood that this madness could be possibleâeuros¦"
He left Les Sables-d'Olonne on October 13 and faced two capsizings in the Atlantic. 3 weeks later, he nevertheless managed to reach the coast of Martinique, shortly before Christmas. He then headed for the Pacific, via the Panama Canal, in February 2014. He arrived in Tahiti in April before resuming his journey from Samoa to Fiji, passing through Vanuatu and Bali in July. On August 1, 2014, while Yvan Bourgnon has completed ¾ of his journey, he is near the port of Galle in Sri Lanka. Giving himself a rest, his boat is then caught in surf waves and he finds himself ejected. He managed to get back on board his catamaran before it ran aground on the rocks.
Yvan Bourgnon did not let himself be defeated and conducted a search for partners and a new crowdfunding campaign that proved to be very lucrative. 328 contributors allowed the sailor to rebuild his boat at Shoreteam and V1D2 in Caen.
Finalize your world tour
Yvan Bourgnon should be back at sea between March 20 and 25 to complete his round-the-world voyage. He will leave Sri Lanka to reach Djibouti at the beginning of April. "The ascent of the Gulf of Aden will be delicate, it is indeed a sensitive area, especially to piracy." It will then sail up the Red Sea to reach the Suez Canal and will stop in Sicily and Lisbon. Finally, it will arrive in Ouistreham Riva-Bella in June.
50,000 km and 27 stopovers
Yvan Bourgnon will have sailed a total of 50,000 km and made 27 stopovers. He will have completed 2 major crossings, the Atlantic - linking the Canaries to Guadeloupe âeuros and the Pacific âeuros from the Galapagos Islands to the Marquesas Islands. After a technical stopover in Sri Lanka, Yvan will take to the sea again in March to reach the Normandy coast in June. This will be the 1st re time a sailor sailed around the world on a small racing boat using forward navigation techniques (sextant).
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The Louloute 2 yvan Bourgnon's catamaran
To complete the first part of his round-the-world trip, Yvan Bourgnon had the Louloute built. After her grounding in Sri Lanka, it took more than 2000 hours of work, spread over 3 different building sites âeuros Normandy, Brittany and Sri Lanka âeuros to repair Louloute which has become Louloute 2 .
This sport catamaran has a length of 6,20 meters for 400 kg empty and has 2 places without cabin. Some changes have been made on this 2 e version. " We have been looking to optimize the boat, to make it lighter when it leaves the yard so that we can load it with more equipment in case of repairs."
