50 years ago, the future on 17 June 1972 manurevDeparted from Plymouth to Newport. then they were called Pen Duik IV…and he would go on to win a fourth English Transat singles with Clemésicois Alain Kolas, making a sensational entry into the legend of offshore racing.
He arrived in Newport (in the United States) on 8 July, breaking the event’s record in twenty days, thirteen hours and fifteen minutes. He beat all the favorites including Jean-Yves Terlen Friday the 13Then backed by Claude Lelouch.
Fifty years later, what’s left? If the event was touted by the national press, it would not have stirred any local interest.
amongst the waves
In Clamsey, director and writer Eric Le Seny, writer of the film Ellen Kolas, Ocean Dreams Sorry for the absence of an official tribute for this fiftieth anniversary, which would have deserved, they say, some. “Fifty years ago to this day, Alain Kolas was in the midst of the waves. Unfortunately, in a city like Clemesi, no one cares to say a word about the man who was the most famous Nivernis and Clemesicois of his time , thus becoming the hero of the sea. I prefer 50 Years of Victory Apart (1972) rather than 50 Years of Disappearance (November 1978). When my documentary, shot in 2012, was released in 2013, we Thanks to this film, Ellen talked about Kolas for six years.
Is browser memory going to fade away forever?
There are several scenarios that Eric Le Seny observed. “Apart from me and my family, in Clémacy, everyone doesn’t care a little. But in Dinard and Saint-Malo his memory is very vivid. When he died in 1978, he took part in the first Route du Rum, which Started from Saint-Malo. He left something in that corner. Also in memory of the sea lovers. When we were kids they had a front row seat to watch it.
For this memory to survive, we also attribute it to the documentary film which became a huge success. Previewed at Clamsey in January 2013, Ellen Kolas, Ocean Dreams Attracted around five hundred spectators. “When Alain disappeared, the question was whether the Manureva song was treated as a tribute or an occasion. I started from this framework with Alain Chamfort to tell me how he did this song with Serge Gainsbourg. Today, the song has become the first carrier of communication of the memory of Alain Kolas. When you sing Manureva, most people don’t even know what it is about, but from them about Alain and her story, her boat It’s easy to talk…”.
There, it is customary to say that 99% of sailors are Bretons and the remaining 1% are Normans. So a boy from Nivernaise… it was simply unimaginable.
Needless to say, Alain Kolas’ trajectory fascinated Norman ric le Seny, especially when he discovered, thanks to his wife, Pure Clemésicois, that Kolas was from Nivre and that his parents made pottery in Clemécy. Had driven “I come from the Saint-Malo/Granville area, from the Manche area. There, it is customary to say that 99% of sailors are Bretons and the remaining 1% are Normans. So a boy from Nivernaise… it was simply unimaginable. ,
The author of a page dedicated to Ellen Kolas on Facebook, Eric Le Cene, decided to shut it down a few days ago: “It’s a point of description that isn’t controversial. I launched it to support the family whose didn’t have the technical background to build it”, he notes. Alain Kolas’ family has since rebuilt a page (Alain Kolas Navigator) advising them to continue without him. “The only thing we can say is That by closing this page I said goodbye to ten years of work on Ellen Kolas to invest myself in other projects”.
Christopher Belhomme
