On the pontoons of Lorient La Base, the sailors are making the final adjustments before the start, Sunday April 28, of the transatlantic race The Transat CIC, heir to the legendary English single-handed Transat. Among the 33 Imoca vessels in the colors of banks, insurance companies or clothing brands, the bright pink of Tanguy Le Turquais’ sailboat stands out in the landscape of the flotilla. On the hull and the mainsail is displayed the name of Lazarusan association which offers shared accommodation between young working people and the homeless.
The 34-year-old Breton sailor has chosen her as his main partner for his 2024 Vendée Globe, the solo round-the-world race which will start next November for many months. “I have always been sensitive to people who live on the streetshe says. When I was a child, with my little sisters, we accompanied my mother who sold jewelry on the Vannes market. Before setting up her stand, she chatted with those who had slept there, and often bought them breakfast. I happened to do my homework with a homeless man. »
Tanguy Le Turquais never forgot these “street people”. His wife, the famous sailor Clarisse Crémer, was godmother to Lazare for his 2020 Vendée Globe. “The Vendée Globe is my childhood dream, my selfish dreamhe admits. But for three months, despite yourself, you generate a little notoriety. Many French people will look at our boats and be interested in our history. I am keen to tell a story that conveys values. »
Repair club motors
Tanguy Le Turquais spent his childhood on a ten-meter boat moored in the port of Vannes. His father, a sports instructor, took his family to the Gulf of Morbihan, and sometimes as far as England or Portugal. In this cramped space, where he shared a bannette (berth on a ship) with his sisters, the young boy imagined himself as a skipper.
But, due to lack of means, he could not practice sailing in a club. It was thanks to mechanics, learned at the maritime high school in Étel, that he was able to barter the repair of engines in exchange for access to windsurfing boards and dinghies. Mechanics also allowed him to embark as a professional sailor on large sailing ships.
Coming sixth in the 2013 Mini Transat, he is starting to make a name for himself in the industry. Then the successes followed one another: French champion on Mini 6.0 in 2014, third in the Mini Transat 6.50 in 2015, second in the double-handed Transat in 2021 (with Corentin Douguet)…
In 2021, he will join the Imoca circuit for the Transat Jacques-Vabre. He then bought his own 60-foot monohull in 2022, Lazare, with a view to the 2024 Vendée Globe. Since then, he has finished 13th in the 2022 Route du Rhum, managed to complete the 2023 Transat Jacques-Vabre despite serious damage, and returned with brilliantly the fleet of the race Return to La Base Lorient.
“We are Catholic, we accept everyone”
“The clickhe said, I had it on my sofa while watching Clarisse’s Vendée Globe 2020-2021 (finishing 12th in 87 days 2 hours and 24 minutes, best female performance in the history of this race, Editor’s note.). I understood that this race was not going to come and give it to me, I would have to go get it. »
After purchasing Damien Seguin’s old boat, it remained to find 1.2 million euros of the operating budget for a team of around ten people. His idea, original in the world of offshore racing, was to reserve 50% of the surface area of his boat for Lazare and 50% for other partners who undertake to pay for the space dedicated to the association.
How does he integrate the Christian dimension of Lazarus? “I told them I’m not baptized and don’t go to church. I don’t consider myself an atheist because I believe in certain things. They responded to me with this phrase which resonated with me and did me a lot of good: “Because we are Catholic, we accept everyone”.”
With his bright pink ship, Tanguy Le Turquais hopes to change people’s outlook on those who live on the streets. “We are capable of moving mountains to help the victims of a natural disaster on the other side of the planet, but sometimes we cannot even worry about the people who are in poverty down the road from us. . »
—-
Taking roommates on your boat
“Regularly, I receive roommates from the Lazare association to let them sail aboard my boat. I have sailed about a hundred of them. They come from Lille, Marseille, Paris and sleep with volunteers in Lorient. For a day, they find themselves on a Formula 1 race car. I think of Baptiste, born in 1940, who hoisted the column mainsail, of Diane, from Burundi, who had never seen the sea, of Christian, 61 years old, schizophrenic… Many people who have had difficulties . They have the will to get out of it, that’s why they are with Lazare. Being on the boat, with the other partners, is super exciting. »
