At the age of 58, on March 15 Cris Welsh passed away, struck down by a heart attack. If this American sailor is not necessarily well known, he is nevertheless a great adventurer who was always interested in sailing.
The name of Cris Welsh appeared to French boaters when he bought with Gabriel Terrasse, the Hydroptère in May 2019 . Attracted by science and by the innovations of anything that floats or flies, Chris Welsh has always been interested in Eric Tabarly, a sort of idol of his youth. It is quite surprising for an American to be passionate about a little Frenchman. And yet Chris has read everything, followed all the adventures of this sailor who has marked generations of French sailors.
Chris has always sailed and after making money in real estate, he was able to indulge his passion. He bought at auction (already!) Ragtime, a 65 feet plywood sailboat (Spencer plan) based in Los Angeles with which he will sail the Pacific races. And with which he will win some of them: Los Angeles - Thi Taiti, the Transpac or Sidney Hobart. He was proud to have his name written under Tabarly's on the trophy!
Chris also loves anything that flies. A plane and helicopter pilot, he owns his own twin-engine plane and was working to get qualified to fly jets. In his office, many books of sails, but also of airplanes: Concorde, Airbus, Boeing... decorated the room.
If he loved sailing, he also loved technical adventures in all its forms. Thus Chris Wesh had bought the catamaran Cheyenne (ex Playstation of Steve Fosset's Jules Verne) with Richard Branson to use it as a base for the launching of the Pentarius submarines (after having disembarked the mast). Units that must do scientific and environmental research on shipwrecks and large marine mammals (whales, giant squid..). Currently the boat is in Japan, unfortunately slowed down by the COVID.
The project to re-sail l'Hydroptère and above all to transform it into a collective research and development platform was his greatest motivation. Today, his business is in the hands of his wife Tina Roberts, who has been following up on the adventure to get the boat back on the water and to continue the high-tech renovations with the help of Gabriel Terrasse. Today l'Hydroptère is in pieces and is starting to return to Saint-Nazaire, where she must be completely checked and assembled before she can touch the water with her new foils.
A very good sailor, a lover of science, curious about everything, Chris' departure will be greatly missed by the Hydrofoil project. But his wife quickly reassured Gabriel Terrasse: " The project continues. L'Hydroptère made his eyes shine so much that it is absolutely necessary to continue wearing it, in his memory.. "
