Alain Colas

Alain Colas ( born September 16, 1943 in Clamecy (Nièvre ), † 16 November 1978) was a French skipper. He is the first to successfully circumnavigate the earth with a multihull. He came around at sea off the coast of the Azores.

Life

Alain Colas was born on 16 September 1943 in Clamecy, where his father headed the urban ceramics factory. He went to school in Vanves and Auxerre to the French High School in 1961, after which he spent a year studying in Dijon and later at the Sorbonne, the subject English.

In 1966 he went to Australia, where he taught French literature at the St John 's College. There he first came into the Bay of Sydney with sailing in touch. In 1967, he met Éric Tabarly, who took part in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. TABARLY offered him for a passage to New Caledonia to a place on his boat Pen Duick III. Colas was so attracted by the offshore sailing that he quit his teaching job to the nail. May 1968, he met in Lorient TABARLY again, for the one-hand Transatlatik regatta an experimental Multihull, Pen Duick IV, designed by the French architect André Allègre, prepared there. Colas spent the whole sailing season 1968-1969 with TABARLY while getting to the deep-sea sailing from scratch. At the same time he published the first reports of sailing.

In 1970 he bought from TABARLY with financial support from his family and the income from lectures, the Pen Duick IV. He sailed with the Sydney to Hobart yacht race as a non- official participants to gain experience and knowledge with his boat. Then he sailed to Tahiti, wrote several reports on the Polynesian island world and learned early 1971, the Tahitian Expensive Krause, with whom he had three children together in another.

The victories

On June 17, 1972, he started from Plymouth on Pen Duik IV to the fourth English - handed transatlantic regatta and reached on 8 July 1972 as the winner of Newport in the U.S., where he and the old record with a time of 20 days, 13 hours 15 minutes far undercutting. France discovered in him a sympathetic new sailing heroes on unconventional route.

His next goal was the first circumnavigation of the globe single-handed to start with a multi-hull boat. For this purpose, the Pen Duik IV, now in Manureva renamed ( Polynesian for " travel bird" ), structurally adapted to the range of sea and weather conditions in the Southern Hemisphere. He started on September 8, 1973 by Saint- Malo, where he crossed the finish line on March 28, 1974, beat the old record of Sir Francis Chichester by 32 days.

Parallel to this race was the first Whitbread race, a Monohull Crew race. It has since been accused of Colas, he had his timing is controlled in order to profit from the media hype about the Whitbread race, though his boat was subjected to as a multihull other criteria and had a higher speed potential. For Éric Tabarly this Whitbread race was created using the Pen Duik VI incidentally a fiasco, he had to give and it was a big discussion in France sailing scene on the use of uranium as ballast on the Pen Duik VI; this polemic in favor of Colas as the new sailing heroes led to a permanent estrangement between TABARLY and colas.

1975 Colas planned and began the construction of the Four Masters Club Méditerranée, a boat of 72 meters length, equipped with the latest technology, should participate in the Trans - Atlantic race singlehanded 1976. On 19 May 1975, he suffered a serious accident on board the Manureva in which his right ankle was separated by an anchor line of Manureva. After 22 operations, it managed to save his foot, and Colas was able to follow the progress of his hospital bed. On 15 February, the launch took place in Toulon. The start of the race was on June 5, 1976, Colas ran on June 29, 7 hours and 28 minutes after TABARLY, his vehement opponents, one in Newport. Because he had limited because of technical problems, heavy weather, make a stop in Terre Neuve, Colas was added a penalty to fifth place.

1976-1977 he was with the Club Méditerranée as the representative of the French sailing culture in the U.S. and in France the go.

In 1978, Colas on the "old" boat Manureva a trimaran, in his last race in part: was launched on 5 November to the first Route du Rhum. His last radio sign of life was from 16 November 1978 to the height of the Azores. In the following days, developed in this area a hurricane that Alain Colas with 35 years apparently cost the lives, possibly due to the construction of Manureva, which was in contrast to modern boats in a composite being built in AG4 - aluminum and unsinkable.

Aftereffect and whereabouts of his boats

Alain Colas was a respected sailor who knew how to inspire media and patrons for this sport. His four-masted sailer Club Méditerranée was technologically far ahead of his time, there were on board use of wind, solar and water energy, satellite positioning, a precursor of GPS and a mainframe computer.

1980 Bernard Tapie bought the abandoned Club Méditerranée, refurbished them and put them under the name PHOCEA back into service.

The disappearance of Alain Colas inspired 1979 Serge Gainsbourg song " Manureva ". His name was given in France to various schools, streets and squares.

Honors

• Prix ​​Guy Wildenstein de l' Académie des sports (1972 )
• Prix ​​André de Saint- Sauveur de l' Académie des sports (1975 )

Bibliography

• Alain Colas, Un tour du monde pour une victoire, Arthaud, 1972, 312 p.
• Alain Colas, Cap Horn pour un homme seul, Flammarion, 1977, 269 p.
• Jean -Paul Aymon, Patrick Chapuis, Gilles Pernet, Colas Terlain Tiercé Vidal de la mer, Paris, solar, 1972, 254 p.
• Jean -Paul Aymon, Alain Colas la mer est son défi, Fernand Nathan, 1977, 96 p.
• Alain Colas Manureva répond ne ... plus, Paris, Sipe, 1978, 96 p.