Brief history of the Martinique round skiff
Testimony of Georges-Henri Léotin
Until around the 1940s, the fishing boat of the Martiniquais, both on the Caribbean coast and on the Atlantic, was the gommier (in Creole gonmié), a type of canoe inherited from the Amerindians, and which took its name from the tree whose hollowed trunk formed its hull (the gommier is also called bwa fouyé (hollowed wood) in certain regions of Martinique.
During 1939 and 1940, in the town of Le François, Jean Lafontaine (the namesake of the fabulist to the very last particle) built fishing canoes for his compatriots, before constructing - one might say inventing - a new type of racing yawl for racing enthusiasts (1950s-1960s). We can attest to the fact that at the end of the 1950s, in Le François, a distinction was made in Creole between yol (wooden yawls) and kannot (gumboats), the two craft still cohabiting, before the gumboat gradually disappeared, in this town as in the whole Atlantic coast. In the 1960s, there were even yawl/gommier races in the François region, and famous racing gommiers such as "Bien-Aimé" and "DFVT": Dieu fait voir tout.
In the 1970s, racing yawls were barely 8 m long; today, they are 10.50 m long. The originality of this craft lies in the fact that its balance, given the size of the sail area on a very small keel, is entrusted to the "bois-dressés", which, as their name suggests, ensure the yawl's stability, righting it if need be. The term bwa drésé (straightened wood) designates both these tools and the couriers who use them.
Great builders and great bosses
We now turn to two generations of Martinican builders: the "historic" (1960-1970) and the contemporary.
The pioneers. Jean Lafontaine (1894-1979), from Le François, is undoubtedly the father of the round yawl, with his most famous achievements being the yawls Pran plézi-a(Venez prendre le plaisir), owned by Sévère Exilie; JMJ (Jésus-Marie-Joseph), owned by Gustave Clodion, aka Tatav, also known as Maginot; Etoile filante (prop. Jacques Viviès); Boeing (prop. Jean Dormoy). He is said to have learned his art from his elders, then during his military service in the French Navy.
Michel Mongin, from Le François, who died in 2011, took over from Jean Lafontaine, builder in particular of the famous yawl Kimafoutiyésa! whose Creole name is difficult to translate: the exclamation expresses the refusal of a situation and a challenge that we intend to take up.
Lison Marie-Magdeleine, from Robert, who died in 1999, "one of the greatest marine carpenters on the east coast of Martinique" (in the words of G. Brival), the repository of unwritten knowledge, a true artist as well as a conscientious craftsman. With him (as with many other figures in the yawl world), great simplicity, respect for others, humility and modesty were the hallmarks of authentic nobility.
Désiré Lamon (deceased 2019), a Marinois builder, won the very first Tour des yoles de la Martinique with the Monoprix boat in 1985.
Osmar Appat, a Franciscan builder, is another pioneer.
The contemporary period (1980s to present). In the contemporary period, some of the big bosses(mapipi in Creole) are also great builders. They include Georges-Henri Lagier, Joseph Mas dit Athon (both from Le François), Désiré Lamon (from Le Marin). As for G.H. Lagier, from an early age he was interested in yawl construction, making mini yawls known in the old days as ti bourik (little bourric).
The big families in the skiffs
Just as there are great families in Martinican bèlè, there are great families in the world of yawl skippers.
The Exilie family: first there was Sévère, a fisherman from Le François, owner of the racing yawl Pran Plézi-a, father of Charles Exilie, known as Charlot, several times winner of the Tour sur les yoles with Nissan and Rosette.
The Lagier family of Le François is another great seafaring family. One of the most illustrious is Félix, known as Met Fé, son of Olivier Lagier, a sailor-fisherman and helmsman who passed on to him his knowledge of the sea and his perceptiveness. Félix Lagier was a legend in his day for his tactical and strategic knowledge and intelligence in racing. Georges-Henri Lagier is the son of Georges Lagier, of the La Citerne district in Le François, and the Creole proverb Yich tig pa ka fet san zong ("The tiger's child is not born without claws") can be evoked for them. He has won the Tour several times as a team member, then as boss alongside Charles Exilie on the Nissan yawl, and alone on the Rosette yawl. Marc Lagier, for his part, long at the helm of the Mont-Pelé yawl, can be considered a mapipi.
As is Joseph Mas, undoubtedly: several times Tour winner on the Ho Hio Hen yawl (1993, 95, 98), then on Mirsa in 2008. His 2 sons, twins Loïc and Laurent Mas, educated at the right school, follow in their father's footsteps (they were Tour 2016 winners).
In Le Marin, we must mention the Lamon family: Désiré made his daughter Maryse the first woman to be included in a Tour crew, in 1989, on the Brasserie yole marinoise - an initiative that led to a certain development of mixed crews in the yawl world, which until then had been, it must be said, rather macho.
In addition to these families, we should mention men like Gabriel and Maurice Malidor, Maurice and Nazaire Tarrieu, and the legendary figures of the town of Le Robert, Frantz Ferjule and his former pupil Félix Mérine: between them, they totalled a dozen victories in the Tour de la Martinique, with the pupil Félix becoming the most successful mapipi in this competition. Not forgetting Franciscans Guy-Albert Romer (winner in 2009 and 2010), Jacques Amalir dit Ako (winner in 2017 on the yawl Rosette), and the new generation with Marinois Joan Jacqua and Diani Rémy, winners in 2012 and 2019 respectively on the yawl Brasserie Lorraine.
Conclusion
In conclusion, G.-H. Léotin reminds us that yawl racing originated as a challenge for fishermen. Organized since 1972 by the Société des yoles rondes (under the impetus of men such as Bernardin Loiseau, Hermann Potiéris, Georges Brival, Alain Dédé, Laurent Ursulet...), the yawl race is a sport without equal in the world, a grandiose spectacle, an infinitely estimable element of Martinican culture, not least for the values of solidarity and humility it develops. A Creole proverb says: Piman pa ka vanté fos-li, "the chilli pepper must not boast of its own strength". We'll leave the final word to a European visitor, French Minister Christian Estrosi, after an initiation to the round yawl: "The Martiniquais, without a doubt, owe it to themselves to be proud of a sport born of their terroir and unique in the world".
