OFFSHORE SAILING BOOSTS LORIENT TO "INFINITY AND BEYOND !"

At 10 months from the Vendée Globe, the activity generated by competitive sailing in Lorient, the capital city of the French Sailing Valley, is at its highest. The order books of the shipyards are full. It is easier and quicker to note the names of boats and skippers who are not in Lorient than to list those who are based or who come there for winter refits operations. And if even Thomas Pesquet, the French Astronaut, arrived there by boat last December, it is because Lorient has clearly changed of Universe – “to infinity and beyond!”.

At the start of 2020, almost 680 jobs were generated by competitive sailing in Lorient, compared to 316 in 2015, according to a study published in December 2019 by AUDELOR, the economic development and town planning agency of Lorient Agglomeration, the greater Lorient area.

+ 115% in 4 years! This is the proof, not only that all the work done by all the actors for almost 15 years pays, but above all that a strong and committed political choice of elected officials since the early 2000s, choice strongly supported by Regional, national and European funding, has made it possible to brilliantly restructure a brownfield site, that of the former submarine base of Keroman, and to make it the territory’s economic powerhouse. 

And it’s more than a success with regard to the sufferings endured by Lorient and its inhabitants during its complicated history. 

This site is now the flagship economic development center of Lorient Agglomeration. Its growth and its national and international image are assets for territorial attractiveness. It's a business case relevant for any community on a global level, seeking to rebuild on its wounds, by pulling a thin woolen thread to transform it into a solid towing cable, to use an image relative to the maritime environment.

After years of success which saw the establishment of very large sailing teams such as those of the Groupama Sailing Team or the DongFeng Race Team, in preparation for the Volvo Ocean Race 2012, 2015 and 2017, the seasonality of competitive sailing could pose question within regional political and economic circles. So much money spent on ocean racing and sailing, whether in infrastructure or events, raised legitimate questions. Sailing is a media sport during major races such as the Route du Rhum, the Vendée Globe, the Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race)  or the America’s Cup. It’s a sport with a positive image but it is a mechanical sport, which is expensive, reserved for an elite and for sponsors investing in yachts whose budgets never stop increasing. It’s also a sport in which the events’ organizations are complicated and hard to fund: no entry tickets for spectators, no TV rights, the main resources are based on private sponsorship, on participants' entry fees and on the resources of public authorities, which are in the process of being reduced whatever the level, local, regional or national, wherever you dig on the planet. But what I saw and heard at the management of Lorient Grand Large, the association in charge of the sailing development of the Lorient area, until beginning of 2019, allowed to be reasonably optimistic. 

The location of a number of key players in offshore racing in Lorient, such as the Effets Mer agency, the race organization OC Sport - a subsidiary of the Le Télégramme Group (a French regional media house), Karver, Incidences Sails, North Sails, and new teams Ultim and Imoca Class, alongside all the entities already in place, some of them for 20 years, have shifted the site and the economy of #LorientLaBase to another dimension. And if there was another indication of this surge, we can just note the number of opening of restaurants and bistros on the site: from 3 in 2018 they will be 9 in 2020 to welcome workers, technicians, crews, salary men/women and tourists on the site.

The acceleration of development now poses questions of berths and available land to keep going. These are only positive issues - trivially "problems of the rich" and more prosaically "good questions" - to which the future elected officials of Lorient Agglomeration after the municipal elections, to be held next March, will have to respond with their services and subsidiaries.

To go further: AUDELOR STUDY (sorry ... in French...)

And of course I remain personally available to share ideas and comments on the matter. 

Christophe Baudry / SmartOcean

SmartOcean supports sports teams, organizers and institutions in advice, studies, fundraising, communication strategy and management of complex projects. You get the idea, we unroll the thread and oil the wheels.