Port-Laf’
Port-La-Forêt is a place unlike any other in the world. French sailor
Olivier de Kersauzon once dubbed it the ‘Valley of Fools’ because it calls to all fans of sailing, the ocean and great nautical challenges. This is where the best ocean-racing skippers have been trained and is also where many legendary racing yachts have been built.
“When I first arrived in Port-la-Forêt, Port-la-Forêt didn’t exist,” recalls French sailing legend Jean Le Cam. Back then, the area was nothing more than a wild shoreline, and the channel that we see today was essentially a vast mudflat.
It all began in the 1950s when Henri Desjoyeaux set up his first yacht-storage yard here. The business quickly expanded to include boat maintenance, repairs, construction, painting and, of course, that started to attract new skippers. Plans to build a harbour followed in the 1960s, inaugurated in 1972 with 600 moorings; today there are 1,130 berths, making it the second-largest marina in Finistère and the fourth-largest in Brittany.
Port-La-Forêt continued to grow and became the birthplace of French ocean racing, the base for Jean Le Cam, Michel Desjoyeaux, Roland Jourdain, Marc Guillemot and Bertrand de Broc. With their energy, enthusiasm and creativity, they began the great adventure that means Port-la-Forêt is now synonymous with ocean racing. A whole line of outstanding sailors followed including Vincent Riou, Franck Cammas, Armel Le Cléac’h, François Gabart and Samantha Davies, to name but a few.
In the early 1990s, the ocean-racing base ‘Pôle Finistère Course au Large’ was born. The aim was to build a centre of excellence – the only one of its kind in the world – to train, coach and support top-level skippers. The centre brings together the very foundations of ocean racing in Finistère and skippers from all over the world. Within the centre, the sailing elite pool their resources and skills with a single objective: to be stronger together.
Record-breaking
The last few decades have seen many records being broken thanks to technical and technological advances plus the audacity of individual sailors. And the skippers of Port-La-Forêt’s ocean-racing base are no exception!
Notable achievements from ‘Pôle Finistère Course au Large’
- Vendée Globe: since 2000-2001, skippers from the Finistère’s ocean-racing base have finished in the Top 5 every year
- Transat Jacques Vabre: wins in 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009
- Route du Rhum: wins in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018
- 26 victories in the Solitaire du Figaro
- 24 French Elite Solo Ocean Racing Championship titles
- 8 wins in the Transat AG2R
- 5 victories in the Figaro single-handed transatlantic race
- ORMA Champion 2006, 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000
Charles Caudrelier
- Route du Rhum record in 2022, with a crossing in 6 days, 19 hours, 47 minutes and 25 seconds
Michel Desjoyeaux
- Two-time winner of the Vendée Globe, in 2000-2001 and in 2008-2009
François Gabard
- Single-handed round-the-world record in 42 days 16 hours 40 minutes 35 seconds, on Sunday 17 December 2017 at 02.45 am off Ouessant island, for the Saint-Exupéry Trophy
Jean Le Cam
- Has competed in the Vendée Globe a record-breaking 6 times
- IMOCA world champion in 2015
- Three-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro in 1994, 1996 and 1999
Armel Le Cléac’h
- Single-handed Mediterranean crossing record, having covered 458 miles in 18 hours 58 minutes and 13 seconds
- World speed record for completing the race in 74 days, 3 hours, 35 minutes and 46 seconds during the 2016-2017 edition of the Vendée Globe
- First sailor to finish the Vendée Globe on the podium 3 times