Gallay: ‘We lost the mast and sank within an hour’

opinion

by Rob Hodgetts

12 May 2025

Bernard Gallay is a two-time Vendee Globe competitor.

It had been blowing 60 knots all night and Bernard Gallay was on edge, but by dawn the wind had eased enough for him to drift off to sleep.

Suddenly, a huge metallic crash ripped him from his slumbers and Gallay knew he was in trouble.

“I thought the keel had broken,” he tells us as we chat one sunny morning at the Palma International Boat Show.

“There was this big noise, a breaking wave, I was lying inside and the boat fell from the wave and rolled over. It was very frightening.”

Ignited a passion

At least, as a competitor in the Vendee Globe solo non-stop race around the world, the Franco-Swiss was by now an experienced sailor.

On his very first introduction to yachting, the boat Gallay was crewing lost her mast five days into an Atlantic crossing and sank within an hour.

The crew took to the life raft and bobbed about for six hours before being picked up by a cargo ship, conveniently heading back to Europe.

I discovered sailing, being at sea, away from everything, I found it really exciting.

At the time Gallay was a rugby-mad student in Paris, playing for the Racing Club de France. Through a friend he had scored a place on the crew delivering the 22m yacht back from Newport, Rhode Island to Europe following a transatlantic race. Far from put off by the sinking, it ignited a passion.

“I had no experience of sailing at that time, apart from the little sailing I had done with my parents on Lake Geneva,” laughs the 65-year-old CEO of Bernard Gallay Yacht Brokerage.

“I did two-thirds of the trip on the cargo ship, but I loved the experience. I discovered sailing, being at sea, away from everything, I found it really exciting.”

Land Down Under

Hooked, the following year Gallay landed a berth sailing with British yachting icon Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world, finishing in 1969.

“I didn’t even know who he was at that time, but I did a fantastic transatlantic crossing with him, and I got to know him,” he says. “He is 20 years older than me but we are very close friends.”

Gallay sailed with Knox-Johnston for three years, notching up a host of races, transatlantic crossings and record attempts.

READ: Palma the charmer spotlights sailing niche

Then an invite came to join the French America’s Cup team for the 1986/1987 contest in Fremantle, Australia. American Dennis Conner’s Stars and Stripes won the challenger series and famously beat Kookaburra III of Australia to win back the Auld Mug, but Gallay relished being part of the scene at one of the iconic editions of the Cup.

“The scenery was fantastic, the wind was strong and the racing was very exciting,” says Gallay.

Tragedy

By 1992, Gallay had scraped together the funding for a Vendee Globe campaign, but the race was marred by tragedy.

Early on, fellow competitor Nigel Burgess − founder of eponymous brokerage Burgess Yachts − was lost overboard and organisers asked Gallay to turn around and help look for him. Eventually, the Frenchman was given leave to abandon the search and continue his race. Burgess’ body was found off the coast of Spain. American Mike Plant was also lost on his way from New York to the start in Les Sables d’Olonne, France.

The hatch opened and I had 100 litres of water coming in so it was a bit of a nightmare.

Gallay’s own dramas were yet to come. One morning in the Southern Ocean he was sleeping down below when the huge “metal” noise shattered his bliss and the boat was knocked onto its side.

“It was an aluminium boat and the side was a bit bent after. The hatch opened and I had maybe 100 litres of water coming in so it was a bit of a nightmare,” he says.

The boat − and Gallay − recovered, but the damage was extensive and he pulled out of the race in New Zealand to make repairs. He continued the voyage but had to stop again in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to fix a shroud before sailing on to complete the circumnavigation.

“That first Vendee Globe was very hard, because I had little preparation, very little sponsorship, but it absolutely changed my life in many aspects,” he says.

“At least it was pleasant to finish, to come back with the boat.”

Special feeling

By now Gallay knew a thing or two about boats, and with plenty of time to think during the trip, he resolved to visit Burgess’ partner in his company, Jonathan Beckett, after the race. Inspired, Gallay set up his own brokerage in 1994, combining it with offshore racing.

“Nigel’s partner gave me a few bits of advice and I started with a small boat in Montpellier, and gradually we built up the company,” he says.

When necessary, you find solutions, which is the great teaching of single-handed sailing.

But the Vendee Globe was unfinished business and Gallay returned to the start line in 2000, undeterred by the prospect of being on his own in a dangerous environment for more than 100 days.

“I love the feeling of freedom, of depending on my own decisions,” he says. “For those sailing events, especially the single-handed races, the first night is fantastic, because suddenly you feel free, you live, you are on your own, you can do whatever you want. Of course, you concentrate on the race, but you get a special feeling, which I love.

“Sometimes it can be very frightening or frustrating, but there are some moments which are so exciting, which compensate largely for the bad moments.”

Fancy, a 33m Swan 108 built in 2023, is for sale with Bernard Gallay at €18.5m.

Steering system bent

On his second lap around the globe he suffered another “bad moment”. After rounding Cape Horn, he encountered strong winds and steep seas in a narrow band of low pressure off the coast of Argentina. Too late, he realised he might have too much sail up.

“Gradually I saw that it was too much, there was so much water on the deck that I was being pushed away from the wheel,” he says. “Eventually, I managed to put the automatic pilot on, went up to the mast and dropped the mainsail, keeping a little bit of jib forward and then I went inside.”

Soon after the boat was again knocked over by a wave.

“It was very frightening, but luckily it didn’t last long,” he says. “When I was rolled, the steering system was bent. There were two rudders on this boat, so I had to go inside to unscrew one rudder and readjust it while there was still 60 knots of wind.”

He adds: “When necessary, you usually find solutions, which is the great teaching of single-handed sailing.”

Gallay made some repairs and sailed on, finishing the race back in Les Sables d’Olonne in 111 days, finishing eighth. “I had much more pleasure the second time,” he says.

‘More fun’

His ocean racing career continued with various solo and short-handed transatlantic races, but the 2007 sale of the 53m sailing yacht Drumbeat alongside another big motor yacht persuaded him his future was with the brokerage.

“I realised I had to make a choice, I couldn’t do both, so I decided to stop and concentrate on the company,” he says.

READ: Brokers on blagging and the art of the deal

He found the early years tough trying to build a business, likening it to trying to raise sponsorship on your own for a Vendee Globe campaign. But with a wider team around him, he says running the company now is “more fun”.

Gallay owns 60% of the brokerage and works with three partners at the head of a wider team: Nicolas Marchand, with whom he did the Mini Transat; ex-captain Youri Loof and Audrey Lucas, head of charter and chief marketing officer.

“At the beginning it was a bit hard, but now it is much more pleasant, because each of us is more or less specialised in one domain,” he adds.

Headquartered in Montpellier in the south of France but with offices across Europe, as well as Hong Kong, San Francisco and Auckland, the company is known for sailing yachts, but motor yachts form a significant part of the business.

“It is a bit more difficult to sell sailing yachts because the market is smaller,” he says. “Sailing yachts require a bit more ‘technicity’, because sailing yacht buyers are usually more qualified as sailors, and so they are more demanding.”

Like most, Gallay had a “terrible year” during Covid but has bounced back and describes 2024 as “an absolute record year in terms of number of sales”.

Notable yachts sold last year were the 64.5m (212ft) classic schooner Atlantic and Magic Carpet 3, the 30.48m (100ft) thoroughbred racer built by Wally Yachts for British businessman Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, the driving force behind the rise of cosmetics brand L’Oreal.

“I want to use the next 10 years, more or less, to keep developing, and then after that I may think of something else,” says Gallay.