Éric Tabarly

Éric Marcel Guy Tabarly (24 July 1931 – 12 June 1998) was a French Navy officer and yachtsman.

Career

Tabarly was born in Nantes on 24 July 1931 to a family of yachting tradition. His parents took him for sailing excursions on their cutter Annie when he was still a baby. In 1938, Tabarly's father purchased the gaff-rigged cutter Pen Duick.

Tabarly enlisted in the Navy as a volunteer in 1953 and joined the French Aéronavale. He served at Saint-Mandrier airbase before transferring to French airbases in Morocco. After earning his pilot licence and the rank of Second Maître de deuxième classe in December 1954, he fought in the First Indochina War, appointed to Tan Son Nhut Air Base.

In August 1956, Tabarly started refitting Pen Duick in his spare time. She was in a state of disrepair since the Second World War, during which she had been decommissioned for fear of being requisitionned, and her wooden hull had rotted. Tabarly endeavoured to rebuild her using polyester resin. The conversion was completed, and Pen Duick was launched in April 1958.

Tabarly (soundtrack)

Tabarly is the original soundtrack album of the documentary film of the same title. It is composer Yann Tiersen's first soundtrack since 2003's Good Bye Lenin! and first studio album since 2005's Les Retrouvailles. The album was recorded in Ushant and at Qu'en reste-t-il? studio in Paris, mixed at Davout studios in Paris, mastered at Loud Mastering, and released through Virgin Records and EMI France in CD format on 16 July 2008. A special edition consisting of a CD plus a LP record was released through Ici, d'ailleurs... record label.

The documentary film, directed by Pierre Marcel, tells the story of the French sailor, two-time champion of the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, and father of French yachting Éric Tabarly. It was released on June 2008 exactly ten years after his death. Éric Tabarly was lost at Irish Sea when struck by a gaff of his Pen Duick during heavy swell and knocked overboard from his yacht near Wales while on his way to the Fife Regatta in Scotland. His body was recovered five weeks later off the coast of Ireland by a French fishing trawler. The documentary, narrated by Tabarly himself, traces his sporting career until his last meal in Ushant.