Éric Tabarly

Éric Tabarly (24 July 1931 to 13 June 1998) was a French naval officer, yachtsman, naval architect and boat designer. He discovered sailing aged three aboard the family boat, and in 1938 his father bought the 1898 gaff cutter Pen Duick, which Tabarly later rebuilt using polyester resin. He won the Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race in 1964 aboard Pen Duick II, ending English domination of the event, and again in 1976, and his other wins include the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1967 and the Fastnet Race in 1997. A pioneer of multihull design through his trimaran Pen Duick IV, he also helped develop the foiling trimaran Paul Ricard, which in 1980 beat a North Atlantic crossing record that had stood since 1905. He died in June 1998, thrown overboard from Pen Duick in the Irish Sea, and drowned.