Gérard d'Aboville

Gérard d'Aboville, 2014

Gérard d'Aboville (born September 5, 1945 in Paris ) is a French navigator and politician. He initiates solo crossings of oceans in a rowboat. D'Aboville has a seat on the Paris parish council for the UMP .

biography

Gérard d'Aboville is a direct descendant of Augustin-Gabriel d'Aboville , a general of the First French Empire , and his son Auguste Ernest d'Aboville , politician of the Second French Empire and the beginning of the Third Republic .

In 1980 he was the first solo rower to cross the Atlantic . He left Cape Cod ( USA ) on July 10th and arrived in Brest on September 21st after 71 days and 23 hours and a distance of 5200 kilometers . His boat, the Capitaine Cook , measured six feet. In January of the same year he and his four brothers took part in the 1980 Dakar Rally on a motorcycle . 1985 he organized and designed the boats for the Expedition Africa raft of Phillippe de Dieuleveult . In 1991 he rowed across the Pacific , he left Chōshi ( Japan ) on July 10th and reached the American coast on November 21st. In 1993 he published Seul ( Alone ), a novel that tells his journey from 1991 like a diary.

Since 1992 he has been accepted as a knight in the Legion of Honor, and in 1993 he was appointed officer.

In 2001 he flew over the North Pole (a private expedition) in a small single-engine plane accompanied by Hubert de Chevigny and Bernard Lafferrière without electronic navigation instruments. In 2006 he joined the PlanetSolar project as a co-skipper.

In 2017, he and Fanny Adam founded the first French marketplace specializing in nautical equipment.

politics

He was a MEP from 1994 to 1999.

Since then he has been involved in the fight for environmental awareness and the preservation of the seas with La Fondation du patrimoine maritime et fluvial . He was also chairman of the Conseil supérieur de la navigation de plaisance et des sports nautiques .

In January 2008 he announced his candidacy for the post of mayor of the 15th arrondissement (Paris) against the candidate of the UMP . On March 9th, 2008 he got approx. 10% of the votes, so that a second attempt was possible. He merged his list with another. He has been a member of the municipal council of the 15th arrondissement since March 16 and is a member of the Paris City Council .