L'Orient 

During our preparations to leave the marina we noticed another First 310, similar to La Premiere, leaving Concarneau.  It was almost an hour before we were off and although it wasn't particularly sunny the weather seemed fine.  The sails were up soon after leaving the marina and I was helming again, sat on the leeward side to see the tell tails in the jib.  This position was fine until the boat heeled a bit, bringing the water rather too close, but the wind was quite light and apart from my concern for Chris, who was merrily fitting a Cunningham up at the mast, all was well.

There were a number of yachts out and soon we noticed the other 310 a little ahead.  That glimpse was enough.  I could see Chris thinking about how we were going to catch up and overtake. They seemed to be sailing in a fairly similar direction to us so it was feasible that we could have a good race!  We had been making way for nearly two hours when we turned onto a southerly course, which we would hold for nineteen miles and were fortunate in the wind direction coming over our starboard quarter, which meant we were on a broad reach – avery pleasant way to sail!  Chris vanished below for a while and soon reappeared with the cruising chute!  The other 310 was, by this time, about half a mile off our starboard bow and was sailing on main and genoa, no sign of a spinnaker or cruising chute. So, that was the great plan then...beat them with sheer size of sail.

Off to our port another yacht was using a chute and we were soon catching them, which was a good sign.  The other 310 responded appropriately and soon we noticed a member of the crew on the foredeck and sure enough, they poled out a spinnaker...  bigger than our cruising chute! 

The fishing line was out again too but it continued to prove to be suitable for vegetarians, all we caught was weed.  By 1600 there was between 5 & 7 knots of apparent winds so Chris poled out the chute like a spinnaker, which improved our speed to 5 knots!  We soon overtook the yacht on our port but the other 310 turned away from us to starboard and our race had to be declared null and void.  They seemed to be heading for Sauzon on Isle de Groix, where as we needed to turn to port to head into L'Orient.  After two glorious downwind hours the wind decided to pick up a bit and so we opted to bring the chute down.  Unfortunately the process did not work brilliantly first time and the chute got a bit of a dunking so we hoisted it again for another 10 minutes to dry it out again!  The second attempt was better, and typically the wind dropped as soon as the sail was bagged up!  With less than eight miles to go we didn't bother getting it out again and just sailed on under our white canvas.

Kerneval marina lies immediately downriver of the WWII German U-Boat pens, vast grey concrete caves, twelve in a row, each large enough to swallow a submarine and its crew of fifty whole.  Across the river from the entrance the Germans had scuttled a ship to prevent the allies from dropping torpedoes into the pens.  On our first night the sun set over the U-Boat Base and silhouetted the rusting sunken hulk.  Perhaps to end its shame, the ship they scuttled was a German WWI battleship that the French took following the ‘negotiations’ at Versaille that had ended that war.

The next morning dawned so bright and sunny we were almost convinced that summer had properly arrived.  We unfolded our bicycles and cycled into L’Orient.  The city was created by royal warrant in 1666 by Louis XIV in order to build ships for the East India Company, from whence the city gained its name.  Unfortunately the city was flattened in WWII and very little of the centre remains from before that time.  After cycling through the docks, which were empty and quietly dozing in the sunshine, as it was a Sunday, we stopped for lunch at the Port du Commerce Quai des Indes, the original docks, which have been redeveloped into a marina surrounded by shops and restaurants.  Very similar in character to our home port of Southampton.

After lunch we cycled to the submarine base.  This was not very well signposted and after touring more of the docks and the Port de Peche, we could always see the vast reinforced concrete shadow in the distance but could not find the entrance.  It then became evident that Plastimo, a French manufacturer of yacht equipment, was using the end facing the city as a warehouse.  We cycled through the factory grounds and once out the other side found the main entrance to the ‘Base Sous Marins’.  From close range the buildings were fearsomely impressive and with the exception of the part occupied by Plastimo seemed to be quite intact.  Behind the pens that overlooked our marina were another dozen enclosed dry docks, with a rail system to transfer submarines from a slipway into any one of these gigantic workshops.  Part of the site had been turned into a small museum and trade was obviously quite slow this afternoon, for as we approached, the curator came out and greeted us with a staccato burst of French that defeated both Chris and me.  Despite not really understanding a word he said, his enthusiasm was infectious and we were soon handing over our forty francs for two tickets.  It turned out that we were the tour party in its entirety, so to make up numbers the curators girlfriend accompanied us too and we set off into the base for a very personal guided tour.  The curator’s English was far better than he claimed and his effervescent passion for the collection was a joy to behold.  The highlight of the tour was being allowed inside a ‘Davis’ system submarine escape simulator.  Usually, our guide explained, visitors were not allowed to touch, but as there were only two of us he made an exception.  The simulator was a round tank, four metres across and twelve deep, filled when in use with water.  At the bottom was a tiny room containing the escape hatch of a submarine through which trainees were thrust by their tutors in order to experience the panic of cold water rising up to their necks and the swim to the surface, all good practice I’m sure . . . . !  It transpired that after the war the French Navy used these facilities until 1995 with very little modification save for the installation of a decompression chamber.  We thanked our host and emerged squinting and blinking into the sunshine to cycle back to the marina.

After dinner we took advantage of the fine summer evening to walk along the coast a short way to Larmor-Plage.  This small town perched on the sea front overlooking the entrance to L’Orient has, it turned out, a rather unique church with the entrance facing north to protect parishioners from the sea spray!  We read that tradition has it that ‘Our Lady of Larmor’ protects the ships leaving on campaigns in far away lands, who are supposed to honour her with a cannon salute on departure.  The town arms promise ‘A fair wind to all who salute me.’  We could not quite manage a broadside but as we left next morning bound for Belle Ile we did dip our ensign.