Exchange with the sailor Titouan Lamazou on his vision of sailing and ocean racing.
How do you see the evolution of sailing races?
The technical evolution seems normal to me. Safer, today's boats are also faster... I must say that the incredible speeds that are reached now fascinate me. When I sailed around the world in 109 days, it was already much faster than those who did it decades before, in 300! And it has accelerated again in the last few years... Even if this time contraction has its limits, because we will never sail around the world in a few seconds. And then, we can also ask ourselves if it is wise to spend fortunes to gain more knots, especially by financing exorbitantly expensive foils... It's probably part of the game too: at my time, my boat was at the top of the technology at the time! But I agree with Le Cam who did it differently and successfully... There is something that really bothers me in the current sailing race..
What is it about?
Well, that's all the communication I'm talking about. In my time, we didn't have GPS and we only used the basic radio... which we could make work badly if we wanted to stay alone... In short, we could be really isolated, far from the world while sailing around! Nowadays, skippers are forced to communicate every day under penalty. They have the phone at hand, just like at home, and are in constant contact with their entourage, with the media... I understand that the sponsors want a return on their investments, but I think that all this communication goes against the concept of solo racing, doesn't it? And let's face it, not all sailors are interesting enough to be talked about on a daily basis. You know, on a boat, during this kind of race, there is not much happening on board: you make a few tacks during the day, sometimes not even one... So, of course, there is Kersauson and other funny sailors like him, but that is not the majority!
Have you considered yourself a boater at any point in your life?
No... In fact, the concept of "pleasure boating", of "sailing for pleasure", is foreign to me, I tell you that very sincerely. I have never sailed for my own pleasure, but to compete, or simply to get around, that's all. For me, boats are tools. And in fact, they have been since the dawn of time. Pleasure boating only came into being at the beginning of the 20th century, and then became more democratic. It is in the lineage of the paid vacations of the 30's, and of the leisure activities which were then generated, with marketing force to promote them. I stayed with the useful version of the boat, that's all!
What do you think about the development of yachting?
Today, what really bothers me about yachting is that it is part of this frantic, generalized consumption, which goes against the preservation of our environment. The ports are considered to be saturated with boats? So, to relieve the congestion, we imagine to create additional floating ones, or underground parking lots for boats... And river boating is like sea boating with a motor... as far as ecology is concerned, there is better, isn't there? I remember having seen on the Lot, an uninterrupted line of barges, all with diesel engines! And all this for only a few days of use in the year... Wouldn't it be better to limit the number of boats, simply, and restrict their use to practical, useful purposes ?
Would you like to curb the ardor of sailing lovers?
Of course, today we cannot prevent people from seeking happiness and comfort on their boats. Even if we ban boating from one day to the next, which is quite radical I agree, it would be necessary to really protect our environment with which we have a real big problem! In fact, everything should be done so that people don't want to look for happiness elsewhere, and in this case at sea. We must do everything to make their life more gentle and livable where they live. We could find solutions, ideas, temporary ones, of course, only of transition, to make boating more eco-friendly. For example, the recycling of boats. When they were made of wood, they were left in cemeteries and they decomposed by themselves, but now that they are made of plastic and composite materials... The other idea would be to encourage boat rental. At least it would limit the use and therefore probably the manufacture of new boats that finally really impact our environment without being almost used.
