MARIE TABARLY HONOURING HER FATHER

Marie Tabarly took line honours in the Ocean Globe Race, surpassing her father’s record while racing aboard his famous 73ft ketch Pen Duick VI

- Barry Pickthall

Marie Tabarly, the daughter of French sailing legend Eric Tabarly, has stepped out from the shadows of her famous father and rewritten history, becoming the first over the line in the Ocean Globe Race – a feat that had eluded Eric during his three attempts at the 27,000-mile race. ‘We did it…We have won in real time… No one can beat us… This was always our aim,’ Marie Tabarly shouted out while steering her father’s 52-year-old ketch Pen Duick VI across the Royal Yacht Squadron finishing line shortly before midnight, on 11 April. She had built up a tremendous 250-mile lead ahead of former Whitbread race winner L’Esprit d’Equipe in this 50th anniversary rerun of the round-the-world Whitbread.

Half Amazonian, half buccaneer, Marie Tabarly cuts a determined stance on land as well as the sea. At our first meeting, at a dinner in Ocean Village, Southampton, before the start of the Ocean Globe Race, she was carrying a large bowie knife down her back. No one had the temerity to suggest that this display of aggression might be in any way illegal. Meeting her again seven months later, after Marie and her mixed crew had thrashed their opposition, she was calmer and thrilled to have won.