At the Brest 2024 maritime festival, we met Mathieu Goraguer and Iris Cordeau, the owners of Basile, a 14.5-meter schooner designed by Michel Joubert and recognized as a boat of heritage interest. Before learning about the ingenious restoration of this boat, which took almost 7 years, let's take a look back at Basile's singular past, when sailors and mountaineers joined forces to combine ice axe and sail in the waters of the South Atlantic. An adventure that lasted almost 10 months.
Damien, an inspiring adventure
In the early 70s, two daring young men, Jérôme Poncet and Gérard Janichon, embarked on an extraordinary adventure. Aboard a 10-meter molded-wood sailboat, they left La Rochelle for a five-year voyage that took them to Spitzbergen, up the Amazon, around Cape Horn, the Austral Islands and Antarctica. Their journey around the world's extremes, from 80° north to 68° south, is recounted by Gérard Janichon in the book "Damien autour du monde".
His unfailing love of the sea didn't stop there, and he undertook the construction of a second-generation sailboat, more robust and larger, at the Méta Naval yard in Tarare. This "Damien II", designed by architect Michel Joubert, became his new adventure companion. With his wife Sally, Poncet sets sail for Antarctica before settling in the Falklands.
The "Sea & Mountain" project
Inspired by this feat, Bertrand and Loïc Dubois, both from Saint-Malo, visited the Méta shipyard in 1974, when the first Damien II was being built. There they met Jérôme Poncet and Michel Joubert to present their "Sea & Mountain" project. They succeeded in negotiating the construction of the hull of their future sailboat, "Basile". In all, only around thirty of these boats were built, proving their worth on the world's oceans and seas. Completed in 1976, the boat was transported by special convoy to Saint-Malo.
On their arrival in Saint-Malo, a mixed team of sailors and mountaineers was formed. They worked tirelessly to fit out Basile, soliciting companies for the necessary equipment. Thanks to these efforts, they received Nirvana masts, all the standing rigging, the essential deck fittings and a Perkins engine. Their goal was ambitious: to reach South Georgia and climb Mount Paget, marking the first expedition to combine sea and mountain.
En route to the South Atlantic
On September 16, 1979, the 14.5-meter steel schooner, specially designed for glacial seas, left Saint-Malo, following the legendary routes of Scott, Amundsen, Charcot and Shackleton, emblematic figures in the conquest of the poles. 8 sailors and mountaineers join forces to combine ice axe and sail for an adventure that will last almost ten months, including three devoted to exploration around Antarctica, from Palmer Peninsula (Graham Land) to South Georgia Island.
The crew is made up of men who have known each other for around ten years: Alain Caradec, sailor from Bénodet; Olivier Carré, engineer and diver; Loïc Dubois, sailing instructor from Saint-Malo; Bertrand Dubois, sailor and mountain guide, organizer of the expedition; Philippe Cardis, Chamonix guide; Denis Ducros, also a Chamonix guide and specialist in high-altitude photography; Firmin Mollard, mountain guide and ski instructor; and Jean-Luc Guyonneau, architect and mountaineer.
The team receives the mounting equipment as a donation, and the overall funding for the trip comes from the creation of a cruising school in Saint-Malo. When Basile leaves Saint-Malo, four tourists are on board, bound for Rio. The other four crew members, who have remained in France to work, join them in November.
Capturing the unknown
This sea-mountain expedition, made up of four sailors and four mountaineers, resulted in the publication of a book entitled "Les montagnes de l'océan" and a film "Où vas-tu Basile commissioned by TF1 and based on footage taken by Denis Ducros, one of Basile's crew members. Thanks to this film, we can learn more about their experience. Ducros leaves with 4 cameras and 17 km of color negative film, 7 cameras, waterproof cases, and enough to take 20,000 photos. There is no doctor on board, but 1m3 of medication is provided, as well as medical assistance by B.L.U. with three doctors from Toulon.
For Denis Ducros, " This is probably the first time that mountaineers have teamed up with sailors to go to the end of the world in search of an adventure playground just a stone's throw from the Antarctic Circle ." The sailors had to be extremely cautious: south of the 50th parallel, the ice was an almost constant danger. On January 1, 1980, the crew searched for the Southern Georgia, which pierced the ocean surface by 3,000 meters.
Once ashore, the crew unloads all the equipment needed for a high-mountain raid: skis, tent, comforter, pitons, supplies, etc.
Denis Ducros is unequivocal: " For mountain dwellers, sea sickness and claustrophobia are a thing of the past; here, we have to drag our house over long distances, while Basil carries everything. "
The objective of their raid is clear: climb 2 or 3 summits, cross passes to explore the other side. With 15 kilos on their backs and 150 behind them, journey times are considerably longer, compounded by the vagaries of the weather. Sometimes, they have to spend several days camped out in the blizzard, with their radio links interrupted. In the tent, there is even less space than on the boat: a real frustration for these mountaineers who are just waiting to be able to climb Mount Paget, South Georgia's highest peak. In the absence of the mountaineers, the two sailors remaining on board take the opportunity to maintain the boat, in particular by repairing the sails.
Retrieving the climbers from another GPS point could become risky for Basile and his crew who remained on board, due to the changing weather conditions and violent gales frequent in this area of the Atlantic Ocean. '' The west coast would be fatal to any yacht caught in a storm from Cape Horn denis Ducros explains.
Thanks to its lifting keel, Basile can run aground, allowing the whole crew to disembark and enjoy the land.
Through the captivating story and poignant images of the film "Où vas-tu Basile?", we plunge into the heart of this sea-mountain expedition. A daring project that documented not only the technical and human challenges faced by the crew, but also the moments of mutual support and courage in the face of the extreme conditions of South Georgia's glacial seas and snow-capped peaks. Basile, with her lifting keel and ability to face the most formidable elements, embodies the spirit of discovery and exploration that drives sea and mountain enthusiasts. This boat steeped in history continues to inspire new generations to push back the boundaries of adventure and nautical exploration, thanks to the extensive refit undertaken by Mathieu Goraguer and Iris Cordeau to get her back afloat.
