Spotted on the TV show I'll sleep at your place antoine de Maximi's "MangeNuage", Anne Pribat has made her mark with an extraordinary nautical project. Her catamaran, MangeNuage, is like no other. Formerly christened Data-General, this racing catamaran, designed in 1987 by Jeanneau Techniques Avancées (JTA) from plans by architect Nigel Irens, made a name for itself in Formula 40 racing thanks to its foiling daggerboards, with Yves Parlier at the helm. After passing through the hands of various owners, the boat was decommissioned in 2010. Originally, she had neither deck nor living space. But that all changed in 2015, when Anne bought the boat with a very specific vision: to turn it into a floating stage dedicated to the circus arts. With the help of naval architect Denis Kergomard, the trapeze artist embarked on a bold transformation.
We spoke to this talented artist, who is both a circus performer and a sailor, to find out more about the process of this metamorphosis and the challenges she faced in merging the world of sailing with that of the circus.
How did you come up with the idea of combining boating and circus arts?
I grew up in the West Indies and discovered sailing under the trade winds, with water temperatures averaging 27°C. What better way to get a taste for it? The next step was to study at a circus school: Châtellerault, then Rosny-sous-Bois, and finally the CNAC in Châlons-en-Champagne. During these 6 years, I discovered the world of the circus, its history, and the vast universe of culture. I lived in the cold of winter and the rain of the metropolis, enough to make me want to go back to the warmth...
Planes pollute, and I've already used up my carbon footprint. Boats make you dream: there are pirates, great navigators and the magnificent world of water.
To set up the tent, you need to know the weather and the wind strength, using the same equipment as for sailing: the anemometer. To attach the fenders, you need to know the capstan knot; to attach the snap hook on my lanyard to my trapeze, it's the double fisherman. The big difference is the steel of the circus and the stainless steel of the boats; static ropes for the sheets and semi-static for my life... Otherwise, it's all the same...
What challenges did you face in transforming this racing catamaran into a floating stage for aerial shows?
It all started with a drawing by Denis that made me dream, and little by little, day by day, the questions came up, the changes, the decisions. In the end, it took 5 and a half years of work.
The first drawing used the rigging of the Formule 40: the idea was, to put on a swinging trapeze show, to hoist the mainsail boom high enough along the mast, attach the swinging trapeze to it and swing underneath. Then, with my hands busy sanding, I imagined myself sailing alone, with: 1, the fear of capsizing, and 2, the difficulty of hoisting or lowering the 90 m2 mainsail... And once I got there (if I did), I'd still have to hoist the boom (what would I do with the sail?), set up the trapeze, put on a show, then dismantle everything and do it all again in reverse to set sail again. It seemed unfeasible and exhausting. So I talked to Denis about it.
This led to the boat's design, with 2 lower masts, 2 smaller mainsails and shroud attachment angles that put less strain on the attachment points and minimize the possibility of capsizing. In the center, a stage and circus structure to be mounted in the rigging. Just great!
It soon became clear that the booms and mainsails posed a problem: the stage could only be seen from the front from the ground, with no wide angle to see the whole stage. Once we'd arrived at our destination, we'd have to uninstall the mainsails, fold them, put them away, dismantle the booms, put them away (where?), then assemble the circus structure, play, and do it all again in reverse... It just wasn't right.
That's when Denis came up with a 3rd solution: the 2 masts placed "aft" with spreaders to provide sufficient angle for the backstays, and 2 props per mast supporting 4 headsails: 2 yanks and 2 staysails. Each sail, with a maximum surface area of 25 m2, is hoisted by hand, without obstructing the view of the stage, and a circus structure can also be hoisted. Yes, I thought it was the perfect solution!
Told in a few sentences, it doesn't take long, but these steps took 4 years. In the end, I ended up building the rigging and masts using carbon tubes as a base; the intersection pieces were made following Denis's drawings and advice, and the spreaders with angles that had to be scrupulously respected: epoxy, glass and carbon fabric, vacuum lamination... I had to reinforce a number of places in the hulls for the strut attachments and the entire standing rigging.
If I open the subject beyond rigging, there were :
- the idea of a round "yurt" offering comfort and a 360° view from inside, as well as a 360° circus stage;
- the idea of lifting rudders to be able to "beacher" with a draught of 80 cm (thanks to the existing removable daggerboards), in order to perform circus shows with the public installed on the beaches. Construction of the removable skirts, rudders and dynamic link between the tiller and rudders began in 2015 and was completed a week before the first launch in 2020. It's a huge subject, with lots of testing, a lot of thinking, and incredible parts to build... which I built.
- the need to position the outboard motors "forward" to balance the boat, which was under the weight of the masts positioned far aft. This problem was solved with this catamaran, 12.50 m long and 7.70 m wide, capable of turning on itself when maneuvering in port with "just" 2 9.9 hp outboard motors.
- we had to find a solution to the problem of where to store the anchor chain and mooring system;
- i had to invent a circus structure that could be stowed on board, installed on the rigging, and support my swinging trapeze. Denis imagined it, and I built it during the winter of 2021, just before the first show date sold in July 2021 in Frontignan.
How does the boat behave under sail?
My catamaran sails just the way I like it. For the moment, she hasn't had a taste of the Atlantic, only the Gulf of Lion in the Mediterranean, but what's certain is that little by little, I'm gaining confidence. She's sailing "well" upwind, just like a catamaran, at 50° to the true wind. The 4 sails work together until I reach full speed. When the wind is on the beam, the first two sails take the wind out of the other two. That's when I hoist the spinnaker.
On the beam and broad reach, the 4 sails support each other and, downwind, they're open like a butterfly. All that remains is to add pulleys to the standing rigging to hoist the spinnaker as well. When the wind picks up, the staysails with their movable booms can be reefed, and the Yankees replaced by the storm jibs.
Tacking with self-tacking rails is an "easy" maneuver in fine weather, but it becomes much more complicated as the wind increases. If the sea is rough, gybing becomes almost compulsory.
Given the time needed to install the outboard motors in the event of a man overboard, I've worked out how to get the boat into the cape with my particular rig. This hasn't yet been tested in a real situation, apart from with fenders, and I hope it won't happen!
To steer, I have several options, autopilot being one of my favorites. Otherwise, in strong winds, I like to sit on a "cloth seat" above the water, with a stick and a hook system that resembles the trapeze harnesses of the Hobie Cats. And when the wind drops and things calm down, I take my place on the yurt with a rope connecting the two tiller bars. With my eye on the sails and the anemometer, all I have to do is not fall asleep...
