His nickname came from crew in First Class 8 in the 1990’s, and it stuck after finishing second in the 2000 Figaro Saint Nazaire leg. His strength is his tenacity and durability, never giving up.

 

Born May 11^th 1977 in Landivisiau, Le Cléach pursued many sports as a youngster including archery, table tennis and football before as well as discovering sailing with his family. Each summer his family would sail from Morlaix to the Scillies. The four Le Cléac’h siblings met the Troussel family on these idyllic summer holidays, who hailed from the rival North Breton region.

 

At school the young Armel sailed Optimists and moved progressively up the leagues to the Finistère team, before taking to the 420 where he was adaptable and accomplished at national level but not excelling outside France.

 

Before taking to sailing professionally his father and mother preferred him to study and so he went to college in Lannion, close to Morlaix Bay, where he completed a diploma which covered data precision, computing skills and electronics, and marine skills which he learned from  Yvon Quernec, a former Tornado Olympic class racer.

From there he sailed one design boats in most positions on board, bow, trimmer, helm, tactician.

 

His brother Gaël won the Crédit Agricole Challenge in 1995 which was the step up passport to an introductory Figaro programme, and Armel joined him as crew on a regular basis at just 18 years old, going on to take part in the Solo Telegramme in 1997.

He tried himself to win the Crédit Agricole Challenge in 1997 when it was Seb Josse won before winning the scholarship in 1999.

 

He completed his engineering studies at the INSA in Rennes, engineering with a sports science, studying for four years. He was runner up in 2000 in the Figaro on his first try, beaten by Laurent Bourgnon. With his long time friend Nicolas Troussel he was second in the BPE Trophy in 2001, he was active on the Figaro circuit in 2003 season when the new boat was launched attracting Michel Desjoyeaux, Pascal Bidégorry, Alain Gautier, Loïck Peyron and Lionel Péan, He finished in fifth place in Bilbao, won the leg to La Rochelle, third into Ireland and clinched the title into St Nazaire by a net 13 seconds.

 

Thereafter he raced with Marc Guillemot on multihulls and Gautier gave him a chance on the Foncia trimaran. He won the AG2R in the Figaro with Nicolas Troussel in the Figaro.

 

 

He sailed the 2005 Jacques Vabre with Damian Foxall in the ORMA class and on the second night they were knocked over. He was thrown out and Foxall was injured and they had to be helicoptered back to Brest.  On his return to Morlaix he united with Brit Air who backed him in the Figaro where he finished fourth in 2006 then fourth in the Route du Rhum, before building a new IMOCA Open 60 for this Vendée Globe.

 

Armel Le Cléac’h achievements

2007

7^th in the Transat Jacques Vabre with Nicolas Troussel

4^th in the Round Brittany race with Nicolas Troussel

6^th in the Clairefontaine Trophy

2006

4^th in the Route du Rhum

4^th in the Solitaire du Figaro

5^th in the Transat AG2R with Nicolas Troussel

2005

Skipper of the Foncia trimaran

2^nd in the Fécamp Grand Prix

4^th in the Lorient Grand Prix

2^nd in the Giraglia Rolex Cup

4^th in the IB Group Challenge

2004

1^st in the Transat AG2R with Nicolas Troussel

4^th in the Solitaire du Figaro

5^th in the ORMA multihull championship

6^th in the Transat Quebec – Saint-Malo

2003

1^st in the Figaro single-handed championship

1^st in the Solitaire du Figaro

3^rd in the Route du Ponant

4^th in the Générali Méditerranée

2002

10^th in the Figaro single-handed championship

3^rd in the ORMA multihull championship

5^th in the Route du Ponant

5^th in the Générali Méditerranée

2001

2^nd in the BPE Trophy with Nicolas Troussel

6^th in the Figaro single-handed championship

4^th in the Round Brittany Sailing race

2000

2^nd in the Solitaire du Figaro

1999

1^st  in the Crédit Agricole Rookies’ Challenge