The Arthaud myth
Florence Arthaud, who tragically passed away on March 9, 2015, was the first and only woman to win the Route du Rhum. With her strength of will and ambition, the woman who had dreamed of freedom and adventure since she was a child won the 1990 transatlantic race in front of all the men on her golden trimaran Pierre Ier. Thus was born the myth of the " Little Bride of the Atlantic ".
"I was not the first woman to race the oceans, but, if I except Virginie Hériot in 1903, I was the first to win against men. It is true that this profession of ocean racer is not the one most women dream of. Many want stability and cocooning. I went from adventure to adventure."
Drowning lurks
In this biography euros co-written with Jean-Louis Bachelet euros Florence Arthaud recounts this tragic episode, where she almost lost her life while sailing off Cape Corsica. It was Saturday, October 29, 2011, the day after her birthday, which she preferred to celebrate alone at sea, when she fell into the water without a life jacket.
As she sees her boat spinning away in the dark night, with only her cat Bylka as crew, Florence thinks she is living her last moments of life. However, some incredible strokes of fate will allow her to survive for many hours in the calm water around her, until help arrives. Because if she doesn't have a life jacket, she has kept her headlamp, but above all, by a miracle, her waterproof cell phone in the pocket of her oilskin. And at the other end of the line, her mother who never rests when her daughter is at sea. Florence will be saved.
"My mother will have experienced a lot of anxiety during my races and capsizes. When I was on land, I spent most of my time looking for sponsors to travel the world. Once at sea, I was not alone in my ordeal. I wasn't sleeping, and neither was my mother."
A thirst for freedom
If the sailor narrates the drama that could have made her lose her life, she also confesses her life. She delivers her feelings, her joys, her frustrations, her anguish and her memories, sometimes with modesty. She describes more than her passion, her love of the sea. This irrepressible need to ride the oceans, to make a name for herself among the most prestigious sailors.
It all begins in 1976, when she is only 18 years old. She is a free and rebellious young woman, young and pretty, who dreams of getting out of her bourgeois family straitjacket, raised in the middle of two brothers.
She evokes her first love Jean-Claude Parisis euros and her meeting with the great ones of "her" world: Poupon, Bourgnon, Moitessier, Birch, her friendships with these male skippers euros she is the only woman euros her friends lost at sea, her victories and her shipwrecks, this band of merry men that are the sailors, lovers of freedom. She also talks about her daughter, Marie, and shares her intimate moments
"Later, when Paris Match headlined: "Florence Arthaud has a fiancé in every port", my father told me that he was ashamed of his daughter. In truth, I have never had too much room in me for a love life. I have led a full life, a little tumultuous, it is true. No man has fulfilled me as much as the ocean; it is the sea that makes me vibrate, the ocean carries me away. The life of a couple has never made me dream. I love my freedom too much!"
thierry Martinez/Sea&Co
The opinion of the editors
Easy to read and short, this biography allows us to discover the intimate life of the "ocean racer". Through the story of this tragic episode, Florence Arthaud reveals her love of the ocean. Well written, mixing romance and poetry, this book awakens in us a desire for escape and freedom. With the strength of her words, she manages to arouse the desire for escapade, to awaken the rebel in us, but above all to make the landlubber understand the irrepressible love of the sailor for the sea.
Tonight the sea is black - Forance Arthaud
- Editions Flammarion
- 13,5 x 22 cm
- 192 pages
- 16,00 euros
