Sir Robin Knox-Johnston: Sailing Legend

J'avais quatorze ans lorsque, en 1969, Robin Knox-Johnston et son ketch Suhaili remportèrent la première course autour du monde à la voile en solitaire, la Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Course épique car un concurrent, Donald Crowhurst, s'était suicidé, faisant croire qu'il continuait à participer et Bernard Moitessier abandonna, préférant rester à Tahiti. Je naviguais alors en dériveur, la mer était ma passion et celle-ci me conduisit à découvrir en croisière la Manche, le Bretagne sud et nord (à bord de la Belle-Poule en particulier), la Méditerranée de Toulon à Malte et plus tard, les côtes du Labrador, après avoir passé quatre années au Service Études du Musée de la Marine, à Paris.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston a été l'un des héros de ma jeunesse, avec Sir Francis Chichester et les disparus: Erik le Rouge, La Pérouse, Joshua Slocum, le Cdt Charcot et Henry de Monfreid.

Pierre-Olivier Combelles

On 14 June 1968, Knox-Johnston left Falmouth in his 32-foot (9.8-metre) boat Suhaili, one of the smallest boats to enter the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Despite losing his self-steering gear off Australia, he rounded Cape Horn on 17 January 1969, 20 days before his closest competitor Bernard Moitessier. Moitessier had sailed from Plymouth more than two months after Knox-Johnston, but he subsequently abandoned the race and instead sailed on to Tahiti. The other seven competitors dropped out at various stages, leaving Knox-Johnston to win the race and become officially the first person to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and single-handed on 22 April 1969, the day he returned to Falmouth. Knox-Johnston donated his prize money for the fastest competitor, a sum of £5,000, to the family of Donald Crowhurst, another competitor in the race who had committed suicide after attempting to fake his round the world voyage.
In recognition of his achievement, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1969 Birthday Honours for seafaring.
He later persuaded African-American sailor Bill Pinkney to follow the southern route around the Capes, rather than using the Panama and Suez canals to circumnavigate the Earth, and to become the first Black man to do so.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Knox-Johnston

Suhaili, le ketch de 32 pieds de Sir Robin Knox Johnston, en 2018.