The skipper, who came to sail almost by chance, first practicing as a conveyor, was, in 1978, the first winner of the famous transatlantic race. He died Wednesday October 26, at the age of 90 years.
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Winner in 1978 of the first edition of the Route du Rhum, for 98 seconds ahead of Michel Malinovsky, after twenty-three days of racing, Mike Birch died on Wednesday October 26 at 90, at his home as Brec’h, in Morbihan.
The disappearance of the Canadian sailor, a few days before the departure of the twelfth edition of this race which built its legend, is that of a huge pioneer of the Hauturières crossings. Mike Birch estimated that he had crossed the Atlantic at least sixty times: “I stopped counting,” he said. But especially without ever capsizing.
We did not say yet a runner offshore but “adventurous navigator”, recalls Charlie Capelle. The latter, manufacturer and navigator, will start from its seventh Route du Rhum aboard one of the four twin boats (sister-ship) of Olympus Photo, the little yellow trimaran on which Mike Birch, there are forty -What years, demonstrated the superiority of a small multihull built in 11-meter-colored laminated on a 21-meter plywood monohull. Michel Malinovsky will have this historic word on the pontoon to greet his opponent: “Only victory is pretty.”
The success of Mike Birch in 1978 opened the way to today’s multihulls. Designed by the American architect Walter Greene, Olympus was the first in the A’Capella series. Olympus was abandoned at sea by its new owner during a conveyance between the United States and Europe, two years after the victory of Mike Birch. 2> “The Anti-Eric Tabarly”
The blue, silent eye, Birch could sometimes have a pastoral or military stiffness in the face. He then happened to answer with “Maybe” or “Perhaps”. Or did not answer. Or by thin and cutting sentences like a razor. This was this man, with a dry and long muscle, remarried in France for forty years. The couple shared their life between Morbihan and the mouth of the St. Lawrence. In Brittany, he was never far from the sites that gave birth to Jumeaux born from the series drawn by Walter Greene.
“I had always had the impression that Mike was coming out of the cellar. He unfolded and then found his vertical shape suddenly, says Loïck Peyron, with whom he disputed, in 1983, Lorient- The Bermuda-Lorient on a small catamaran. Mike folded, made the back when time forced. Mike, it was the school of absolute flexibility, in a way the Anti-Eric Tabarly, who thought that he, If that did not hold, it is that the calculations were badly made. If bullshit happened on board, Mike said nothing, but staring at the impetrant with this look at the Clint Eastwood in Inspector Harry. He was the ‘Sea balance: go fast without breaking. I called him master jedi. “
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