AllMovie

As its eponymous title suggests, the documentary portrait Tabarly relays the inspiring and yet ultimately sad tale of Éric Tabarly. A Gallic naval officer who began life in 1931, Tabarly set a remarkable string of speed and distance records in his sailboats, each of which he christened 'Pen Duick.' He went missing in the Irish Sea in June 1998 en route to Scotland's Fife Regatta, however, and authorities later found his body in the ocean; they concluded that he had been accidentally knocked out cold by a gaff during a massive swell, and pitched overboard. With Tabarly, documentarist Pierre Marcel charts the sailor's incredible life story.