The project: casting off!
Summer 2016: holidays in the Basque Country. Days punctuated by the beach, learning to surf, walks, visits. Our children are between 6 and 2 years old, the twins are old enough to enjoy the discoveries with us. No schedules, no constraints, no stress. That's all it took to dream of extending this suspended time and rethinking our teenage project, when Antoine and I were leaving high school talking about sailing around the world.
We were there: the time to realize that our children are growing up, that time flies, that we support the work and school week at 100 hours an hour by targeting the weekend to be together. I am coming to the end of my ten years of medical studies, Antoine has launched his optical store, we are professionally satisfied, but exhausted.
So this evening in July, the children asleep, after multiple calculations and as many "but no, it's never going to do it", "Yes, I'm telling you that if we sell the house, we sell the cars and we eat pasta for 6 months, it'll pass"... we toast our new project: a one-year Atlantic tour by sailboat. All together.
For me Camille, this is not completely new since I spent 1 year on a sailboat with the association "La Baleine Blanche" the year I turned 13, discovering West Africa and the Dominican Republic with 13 other young people. But this time I am the adult, and after the excitement of the decision, comes the return to more down-to-earth things: organization.
Travelling is organizing yourself
The key to the trip: the boat! After a few weeks of research, our choice is made. This Dufour 43 Classic visited in South Brittany will be our floating house and we will call it Boutavent (in reference to a place we appreciate near us). Long months of preparation, hesitation followed: "Maybe we should have just moved to the seaside, it would have been easier no?", "And if we were unconscious to take our children on this adventure?"... and many twists and turns in the boat's preparation. Insurance, vaccinations, schooling, sale of the house, sorting of business... But also Guadeloupe or Martinique? Senegal or only Cape Verde? Need a visa for the Bahamas? All these questions shorten many of our nights.
To share a passion with your children
But the desire to experience a different, simpler life is growing stronger every day. Let's both be Bretons, Antoine and I grew up sailing. Since we were little, we have been sailing with our parents, him in Finistère, me in the Côtes-d'Armor. Our paths crossed in high school and we grew this passion with our own children.
Now it is our turn to show them the world through the sea. Life in a restricted space, sharing tasks, long journeys, and then discovering new countries, new cultures, meeting other peoples and other travellers. This year will be an opportunity to learn differently as we will both train our four sailors. No correspondence courses, but multiple media will allow us to follow the program in our own way.
The crew quarters, heated, had multi-layer insulation composed of thick felt, reindeer hair and cork balls mixed with tar, all under wooden panels. Apart from reindeer hair, we couldn't do better today.
Antoine - 31 years old at the time of departure
- He likes: to be ahead of his planned route, sunrises at the end of the shift, teaching children how to manoeuvre
- He doesn't like it: when his sails are fast, steer under the squalls
Camille - 30 years old at the time of departure
- She likes: taking a seawater shower at the back of the boat, listening to her podcasts in the night shift, climbing and mastheading
- She doesn't like: cooking at the lodge, the flying fish landing in the cockpit
Mathurin - 8 years old at the time of departure
- He likes: jumping from the front of Boutavent, diving with fish and turtles, making new friends by boat
- He doesn't like: the lack of a basketball basket on the boat, getting his toys stolen by the kids
Anatole - 5 years old at the time of departure
- He likes: François Gabart and his trimaran, surfing, kite, windsurfing, paddle... in short everything that goes on the water
- He doesn't like: spending too much time ashore, when his toys go over the edge
Théophile - 4 years old at the time of departure
- He likes: Guillaume Nery and Laurent Ballesta, looking at the stars on sailing nights, going to school with mom
- He doesn't like: showering in fresh water, having sand in his shoes
Josephine - 4 years old at the time of departure
- She likes: napping while sailing, doing gymnastics suspended from the boom, dancing in all circumstances
- She doesn't like it: when her brothers splash her, having her hair tangled by the wind
The boat will be launched in 15 days and will begin a phase of static tests, before continuing with the first sailings and the search for performance.
Boutavent is a 1999 Dufour 43 Classic that we bought almost two years before the start, seduced by its particularly spacious interior layout, its 4 double cabins and its large storage capacities. We prepared it week after week at the port of Le Légué (St-Brieuc) for the long trip, partly with the help of a construction site: change of the two headsails, complete overhaul of the engine, dismasting and overhaul of the standing rigging, change of the running rigging, removal of the keel for joint replacement, new roof top..
This did not prevent some uncertainties during the first two months of the trip with the refrigerator's cooling unit to be changed and above all an energy balance to be reviewed. The initial 180W of solar panels being clearly insufficient, it is in Portugal that we added two solar panels to reach 540W and completed the park with two service batteries.
The route initially planned is "classic" enough to be feasible in one year: an Atlantic loop. Descent from Brittany to Spain, Portugal, Porto Santo and Madeira, then the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, transatlantic crossing to the West Indies and back through Bermuda and the Azores.
The route initially planned is "classic" enough to be feasible in one year: an Atlantic loop. Descent from Brittany to Spain, Portugal, Porto Santo and Madeira, then the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, transatlantic crossing to the West Indies and back through Bermuda and the Azores.
Top start given on July 15, 2018 from Dahouët, in the Côtes-d'Armor! The first few weeks are festive as we meet up with family at each stage of the Breton tip. After crossing the Bay of Biscay at the height of its reputation: 25-30 established knots, a well formed and crossed sea, a lot, a lot of rain... the trip really starts in Spain, with our first buddy boats.
Little by little we take our rhythm on board, between school, DIY, visits, hikes, water sports and friends. It is not a life without constraints as one might think seen from the ground, but a life with other constraints: meteorological, geographical, technical, sometimes motivational... and financial.
We enjoy seeing our children blossom, becoming more autonomous every day, watching siblings evolve, being more attentive to each other. And quickly, the return after one year thus does not seem possible to us, too fast, not allowing us to explore all the richness of this experience.
Calls to France, to the family, discussions with the children, everyone valid: we continue! How long, to how far? Where the wind will take us...
