NEWS that the Jolie Brise was leading the fleet at one stage on the first leg of the Tall Ships race from Torbay to Lisbon, brought back memories for Di Maddicott, of Newton Abbot.
Her grandfather Albert Paddon, who was born in the Ship Inn, Teignmouth, often sailed on her. His sister, Henrietta, had married a real salt of the earth seadog, Sidney Briggs.
Henrietta lived in the Ship Inn and met her husband-to-be on one of his many visits to Teignmouth on yacht racing voyages. At the age of 12, Sidney sailed on the Thames barges plying between London and Essex and made his first landfall in the Devon port in 1911, arriving at the helm of the three-masted double top-sail schooner Betty Russel.
Sidney, Mrs Maddicott's great uncle, married in 1918 and the couple made Teignmouth their permanent home. They celebrated their diamond wedding at their home in Alexandra Terrace in March, 1978. His livelihood was yacht racing, interrupted by the first world war when he served aboard a minesweeper. He later saw active service on board landing craft at the Dardanelles.
After the war it was back to sailing and he was asked by Lt Cmdr E G Martin, founder of the Royal Ocean Yacht Club, if he would make the Jolie Brise shipshape. She was built in 1913 as a Le Havre pilot cutter in solid oak.
In 1925 the first Fastnet Race was held across 600 miles of the toughest seas from the Isle of Wight, around the Fastnet Rock on the southernmost tip of Ireland, and back to Plymouth. Against larger yachts with larger sails, Sidney and Lt Cmdr Martin won the first Fastnet Race – and she went on to win the race twice more.
A year later, the Americans formed the Bermuda Race, and the pair set sail from Teignmouth in Jolie Brise to cross the Atlantic. The voyage to America and back earned them the Blue Riband for the most outstanding achievement of 1926. For seven weeks they battled the wild Atlantic, but as far as the world was concerned, they were lost. Henrietta could only stay at their home and read accounts of fierce gales and strong storms.
But the Jolie Brise sedately sliced through the waters of Long Island just in time to re-set her sails for Bermuda. She came in first in her class, and second overall. By the time Sidney brought her back to Teignmouth she had logged 32,000 miles. Not long before their diamond wedding, Sidney and Henrietta had an official invitation to London to attend a party aboard the Jolie Brise, but because of the travelling were unable to make the trip.
Another Teignmouth man, Alf Broom, a retired harbour pilot, was one of the crew during the first Fastnet Race. Incidentally, Mrs Maddicott's cousin Harry Sealey was asked to work on the cutter in 1991, but was unable to do so at the time.