Virginie Hériot

Hériot 1931

Virginie Claire Désirée Marie Hériot (born July 25, 1890 in Le Vésinet , Yvelines department , † August 28, 1932 in Arcachon ) was a French navigator and medalist at the 1928 Olympic Games . She has contributed greatly to the spread of her sport and has been referred to as the "ambassador of the French Navy" (ambassadrice de la marine française), which gives her the nickname "Madame de la Mer".

Life

Virginie Hériot was born on July 25, 1890 in Le Vésinet, Yvelines department. Her father, Olympe Hériot , was the owner of the Grands Magasins du Louvre and her mother was the philanthropist Cyprienne Dubernet . Virginie experienced her first cruise with her brother Auguste and seven family friends in 1904 on the yacht Ketoomba (later Salvador : “Savior”) which belonged to her mother. From April to June the cruise went through the Mediterranean . When she met the commander Pierre Loti of the destroyer Vautour , the decision matured in her that she wanted to become "Navigatrice".

On May 2, 1910, she married the vicomte François Marie Haincque de Saint Senoch , who was just as enthusiastic about sailing as she was, at the Château de La Boissière in the Yvelines department, a property of her mother . The couple went on their honeymoon on the Salvador that they had received as a wedding present. The couple had a son, Hubert, who was born on January 5, 1913, but Virginie had to undergo major surgery in 1918 and in 1921 she separated from her husband. From then on she switched to sailing almost exclusively and only rarely came back to her Paris apartment on rue de Presbourg (later: 54 rue de Varenne ).

In 1912, Hériot had her first racing yacht built: l'Aile I (English: wing). She tried, albeit without success, to win the Coupe de France , which had been in the hands of the English for two years . In 1921 she acquired a yacht with a length of 85 m and 1492 t, the Finlandia , which she later replaced with the schooner Ailée , on which she then spent 10 months a year. The Ailée had a length of 45 m and a weight of 400 t (formerly Meteor IV , Max Oertz-1909).

She also had other competition boats made: Aile (8 m) and Petite Aile (6 m). In 1922 the Aile II was beaten by the yacht Bora in Le Havre , but with perseverance Heriot managed to go on and then win prizes too. In 1928 in Amsterdam , with the Aile VI , she won the gold medal at the 1928 Summer Olympics as well as the Coupe d'Italie against Holland , Italy , England, the USA , Sweden , Norway and Argentina . In 1929 she won the Coupe de France and both the Coupe d'Italie and the Coupe du Roi d'Espagne . In 1931 she was 9 minutes 40 seconds ahead in a duel with the three-master Sonia on the Ryde- Le Havre-Ryde route.

Because of her successes, she was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor . The Spanish King Alphonse XIII. visited her in 1930 with his family on the Ailée II and awarded them the Order of Mérite Naval Espagnol . Rabindranath Tagore referred to her as "Madame de la Mer".

Because of her fame and the press conferences she gave around the world, Virginie Hériot became an advertising icon in French shipbuilding and made the quality of engineers and shipyards (chantiers) famous. The Minister of the Navy, Georges Leygues, described her as a “true ambassador for the French Navy”. However, she also devoted herself to philanthropic projects, and supported the Sociétés Nautiques such as the Yacht Club de France , of which Jean-Baptiste Charcot was president at the time . She gave the cadets of the École navale yachts of the type "Monotype brestois" and published an atlas of the port, which she illustrated with her own drawings and poems. She had a deep friendship with Alain Gerbault. He often quotes them in his works (OZYU). In 1932 she was seriously injured during a storm between Venice and Greece . However, she refused to abandon the competition. At the end of August, during the Arcachon regatta , she lost consciousness on her ship Aile VII , but took part in the competition anyway. When she crossed the finish line, she passed out again and died on August 28, 1932 on board the Ailée II . The funeral took place on September 2nd in Paris in the Basilique Sainte-Clotilde .

It was impossible for her mother to give her body to the sea off the coast of Brittany, so she buried her in the family crypt in La Boissière-École . It was not until 1948 that her son complied with her last wish and gave his mother's remains to the sea near Brest .

Prizes and awards

Ailée , the schooner that Hériot acquired in 1923.

The doctorate (school year) of the École Navale from 1932 was named after her.

The Committee of the Yacht Club de France donated the "Coupe Virginie Hériot" on May 21, 1946. The cup applies to boats of the dragon class and is held annually.

• 1924: Aile III - Coupe d'or de SM Alphonse XIII ( San-Sebastián , Spain)
• 1925: Aile IV - Coupe Rylard (Gènes), Coupe de la Méditerranée (Italy), Coupe Cumberland (Ryde, England), Championne de France
• 1925: Aile V - Coupe de Copenhague ( Denmark ), Coupe Porte ( Helsingör , Denmark), Coupe des Étrangers ( Finland )
• 1927: Petite Aile II - Coupe du Cercle de la voile de Paris , " One-Ton-Cup " (Ryde)
• 1928: Aile VI - Championne du Monde, gold medal at the Olympic Games, Coupe d'Italie (Holland), Coupe Rylard (Gènes)
• 1928: Petite Aile II - Prix d'Honneur (Deauville), Coupe Clerc-Rampal, Prix d'Honneur (Le Havre), Meilleur Classement, Bilbao, Coupe de SM La rein d'Espagne (San-Sebastián)
• 1929: Aile VI - Coupe de France (Ryde), Coupe d'or de SM Alphonse XIII (San-Sebastián)
• 1930: Aile VI - Coupe Macomber, Coupe Thalassa

Even during his lifetime Heriot had several of its ships to the navale École away: the Petite aile II , the Petite aile III and the Petite aile V . These ships took part in the Grandes Régates de Brest in the spring of 1932 .

After her death, the Ailée II was also handed over to the École navale . In 1935 she was still at anchor in the arsenal. During the Second World War it served as a mess for German officers and was sunk by the Germans in 1944. After the liberation, the Camper & Nicholson shipyard was commissioned with the restoration, but it turned out that it was irreparably damaged and only the bronze and the lead keel could be recovered. The sale of these materials was used by the Cornouaille shipyard in Quimper to build the “Bénodet” boat, which was donated to the École navale .

Oeuvre

Monument in Cannes .

Carnets de voyages - travel reports

• L'Aile I
• Quart de Nuit
• À bord du Finlandia
• La Seconde France (Impressions sur les fêtes du Centenaire), 1931
• Sur mer: impression et souvenirs , 1933
• Le Vaisseau Ailée, le bateau qui a des ailes , 1931
• Ailée s'en va , 1923–1927
• Service à la mer , 1932

Poems

• Goélette ailée , poèmes, 1927
• Le Bateau de mon enfance , poèmes, 1928
• Une âme à la mer , 1929, préface d'Alain Gerbault, édition des Gémeaux, Paris - couronné par l ' Académie française

Memorial plaque in Paris at n ° 54 de la Rue de Varenne .

Web links

• Une amazone de l'océan Bateaux.
• Virginie Hériot, Madame de la Mer. Société d'Histoire du Vésinet.
• Espace tradition Ecole navale.
• Virginie Heriot in the database of Olympedia.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ une véritable «ambassadrice de la marine française»
2. ↑ Service Historique de la Défense, Department Marine de Brest