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Benj's boatyard is easily identified. Marked, as it is, by two, daggerboard era, IMOCAs standing beside its main building.

The patio, outside reception, is adorned, not by a sculpture, or potted plants, but by an original Hugo Boss (as Benj's boat was known, when first raced, by Britain's Alex Thomson) foil. Its significance explained on an inscribed plaque.

Both appendages were replaced, for the 2024 Vendee Globe, with much longer, scimitar shaped items. Reflecting the evolution of design, since her 2015 launch. (Picture from our visit to Les Sables, earlier in the month)

The boat and Benjamin Dutreux are presently at sea. Competing in the Course des Caps race. Which left Boulogne on Sunday, in billows of sea fog. To race around the capes of the United Kingdom, clockwise.

Work at the yard continues, despite the proprietor's absence. Today's spectacle: a heavy displacement cruiser is hauled from the water. Using an hydraulic, jack up, cradle and a telehandler. Her owner (in beige hat and shorts) watching proceedings, fixedly.

Photo Credits

Course des Caps, off to a foggy start. Courtesy of  Francois Van Malleghem

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Stargazer leaves La Rochelle, French style. Sailing out of the marina aisle. The early morning breeze today excelling, in the extent of its easterly slant.

A merchantman, makes her way into La Pallice, for loading. Tugs bow and stern, to help her make the tight turn. Stargazer ducks astern

In three tacks, Stargazer is through the Ile de Re bridge. Able to ease sheets once more.

For a reach along the Ile de Re shore.

The wind is dropping, but freeing all the while. Until, off the battlements of Saint-Martin-de Re. . . . .

. . . . . the wind is far enough aft, to hoist Stargazer's cruising chute and to regain our speed.

The wind takes its midday siesta. Stargazer rolls on an oily swell. Sails slatting. Her skipper eats lunch, in the shade of the rig. Watching as ripples slowly fan across a smooth sea.

The afternoon breeze builds from the north west. Stargazer beats along the low ochre cliffs, of the mainland shore. The last of the fair tide helping her along. The almanac open, in search of a bolt hole, that can be reached before it turns against us.

We put into Benj Dutreux's home port. A friendly Vendee beach resort. So welcoming that, on seeing our cautious slow speed approach (at low water, on our first visit to Bourgenay), a RIB is despatched, to pilot us through the shoals.

Ashore, a Sunday afternon fete, in aid of the local lifeboat, is in full swing.

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A brace of race boats short tack out of the marina aisle. In a display of sailing skills, which would have the harbour master's launch in hot pursuit, were we in England. In France, the sight is routine.

In La Rochelle, the breeze is at its best morning and evening.

Pausing for a siesta between-times. Usually taking the opportunity to shift, from an easterly to a westerly slant, when it returns.

A consideration which will shape Stargazer's next move.

For, we have more honey-pot ports to visit, before the holidaying hordes are unleashed, on Le Quatorze (July the fourteenth. Bastille Day, to English speakers).

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Every second step reveals a fresh vista. Commands a pause. To absorb the view, preserve its memory, with a picture, and, perhaps, to Google its provenance.

The conical topped Lantern tower, located beside the channel, and visible across town, was built as a lighthouse. In its first incarnation, by the Romans. Housing a well stoked fire to warn ships at sea. It is currently surrounded by the portakabins, of masons, working to integrate twenty first century flood defenses with the mediaeval city walls.

At the head of the harbour, the squared off Saint-Sauveur church glows in the morning sun. Lending a Spanish look to its corner of the waterfront.

Metres away, along the quayside, the severity of ancient stonework is relieved. Sculptural Scotch Pines, bonsai writ large, sprout luxuriantly green. Beside a bold red striped lighthouse. Shifting the scenic palette beyond the spectrum of weathered masonry and terracotta.

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The Russian frigate Shtandart stands by the quayside, in the Basin des Chalutiers. Picking up passengers, for a cruise north.

Forlorn, against the opposite wall, lies ex ocean racer Kriter Vlll. At the end of a blind alley of design. Up for sale.

Her aluminium hull is rapier slim. Stability is derived from a deep and heavy keel.

She was outrun by fresh design thinking. The coming of the lightweight surface skimmers. First, the trimarans. Mike Birch's Olympus Photo leading the charge ( See For The Record ). Then, the scow bowed monohulls, like this trio of Classe Minis. Finally, the IMOCA foilers. Keels light (or non existent, in the case of the tris), their stability derived from hull form or foils.

The same design direction which is the inspiration for RM's colourful cruising creations.

At the other end of the performance spectrum, lie the Fountaine Pajot 'condo' cats. The motor sailors of the twenty first century. Built for space and comfort, rather than for speed.

It is a popular recipe. To judge by the clusters of catamarans, being commissioned, in the basin, by the La Rochelle yard.

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The weekly grocery shop cannot be considered a chore. When the trip is made on a silent solar-electric water bus. Whose route lies between the twin towers, of Saint Nicolas and La Chaine.

In town, white stone glows in the afternoon heat. A high tide laps the apex of the bridge. Pantiled roofs glow red hot.

The leading lights, for shipping following the channel, share space with a tall terraced waterfront facade. In this most nautical of cities.

Through the great gate arch, the temperature drops, in the shadow of the mediaeval masonry. Cyclists hurtle, hither and thither. Tourists loiter and stroll.

Arcaded streets cast a shade, so deliciously cool that, to enter its embrace, is like a draught from an alpine spring.

The cloisters conceal all manner of designer boutiques. And, incongruously, in prime position, at the city gates, a Monoprix supermarket. Famous for its affordable foodstuffs.

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Saturated colours. Shimmering heat. Ships, queuing for La Pallice docks, at anchor in the bay. Sun bathers sat up high, on la plage des Minimes, the better to catch the cooling sea breeze.

The inspiration for, local boatbuilders, RM Yachts. Noted for building in epoxy infused plywood; for cruising designs informed by contemporary ocean racing hull shapes; and for vibrant, 'any colour you like,' paint jobs.

Their latest progeny, pretty in pink, is the RM1080. A thirty six footer. With a full four metre beam, carried right aft. To deliver off wind sail carrying power.

And interior volume, with would put many a forty footer to shame.

Let alone a more traditionally shaped thirty six footer, with less beam and a finer run astern, like the J36  (see Zen Again 75)

One foible which both boats share, however, is placement of the jib sheet winches out of reach of a solo helmsman, confined behind the twin wheels.

A cobalt blue RM970, one size smaller, at thirty two feet, comes to the rescue. Tiller steered, as standard, her skipper sits well forward. Beneath the shelter of the sprayhood, with winches comfortably to hand. 

These, as is the RM trademark, are placed at the forward end of the cockpit, at waist height; instead of, as is customary, out on the coamings. With the RM layout, they are both safer and easier to work at sea. A typically cruiser savvy touch, from the race influenced La Rochelle yard, which prefers to go its own way.

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The scent of stockholm tar and wood shavings hang in the air. As the grandes dames, of the La Rochelle historic ships fleet, are kept in the manner to which they are accustomed.

 On the skyline, sunshine and shadow play upon the timeworn masonry, of the tower of Saint Nicolas. Making the mediaeval stones appear to shimmer, with a supernatural light.

Across the harbour, resplendant in scarlet, is Bernard Moitessier's Joshua. The steel solo circumnavigator. Which sailed so sweetly that Moitessier famously abandonned the lead, of the worlds first solo around the world race (the1968 Golden Globe), to sail on to the South Seas. Instead of crossing the finish line in Falmouth.

 The dents in her bows, testimony to an unhappy encounter with an uncharted atoll. Which her robust constitution enabled her to survive. Thus sowing the seeds for today's, uniquely French, breed of aluminium 'exploration yachts' (Ovni, Alubat, Allures, Garcia et al)

Joshua stands in place of honour, before the great gate arch. Where, beneath the dappled shade, of a broadleaf grove, dinner is served. In this city, for which, history is always on the menu.