Admiral Robert, Martinique, its gum trees, and its yawls
Testimony of Charles-Henri Fargues.
"In 1943, Admiral Robert, of sinister memory, ruled the colony with an iron fist. The Americans and British imposed a total blockade of the island, immobilizing the French war flotilla anchored in Fort-de-France bay. These included the aircraft carrier Béarn, with 107 aircraft on board; the cruiser Émile Bertin, which until then had transported 350 tons of gold from the Banque de France, representing twelve billion 1940 francs; the training cruiser Jeanne d' Arc; and a number of other ships, cruisers and submarines, some of which had taken refuge there since the start of the war.
At the same time, Martinique's youth heard General de Gaulle's call. From the villages, the countryside, the mornes and the ravines, hundreds of them set off or wanted to set off in "dissidence" to join Resistance emissaries in the neighboring English islands of Dominica to the north and Saint Lucia to the south. The smugglers armed gumboats and attempted the crossing under the triple threat of the Vichy patrols of the Royale, the American submarines maintaining the blockade, and the still-forming sea in the channels between the islands.
The gum tree
By this time, the gum trees needed to make traditional boats were already being cut down on neighboring islands. As the blockade prevented them from crossing the canals to bring back the trunks, a shortage of gumwood set in. Marine carpenters could no longer make canoes. The situation becomes even more difficult for sailors and fishermen, who can no longer find gum trees to replace those preventively seized by the Vichy administration and sunk in the always perilous adventure of Dissent. There are also those who remain in Dominica or St. Lucia, their dissident crossing completed, or simply those who have reached their age limit and need to be replaced.
At this time, throughout the island, there are two main types of boat. The gumboat, which is used on the Atlantic coast to make the return trip downwind, taking advantage of the easterly wind. The sail is rectangular, often square, and tensioned by a sprit called a yard. On the Caribbean coast, the gumboat is powered by oars. The second boat is the barque. It's a flat-bottomed skiff used for navigating cayes and mangroves, and up rivers. The two canoes are used mainly for fishing.
The idea of the skiff
In several places on the windward coast, one then two then several marine carpenters simultaneously imagined and built a boat that borrowed from the gum tree for the use of excavated wood and the rounded shape of the hull, and from the flat-bottomed yawl for the assembly technique.
The result was a new, more stable, faster and more seaworthy craft. The round yawl was born. The round yawl took root all along the Atlantic coast and prospered, replacing the gumboat, which remained on the Caribbean coast.
The competition yawls
Initially apprenticed to Jean Lafontaine, Osman Appat and Michel Mongin went on to build round yawls and, later, the first competition yawls that made headlines. Some, such as Frisson, Good Year and B707, were built by Michel Mongin.
Today, these boats are used only for competitions. Modern materials such as carbon and resin are used in their manufacture. Gumboats and round-bottom yawls sometimes compete against each other, but their paths diverged in the early 1970s. In recent years, the yole-ronde, supported by the Fédération des Yoles-Rondes de Martinique, has succeeded in occupying media space. Every year, the Tour de la Martinique des yoles-rondes, which takes place during the first week of August in front of tens of thousands of spectators both on land and at sea, is by far the most popular event in the country.
At the manufacturing level
The round yawl is built from a frame on which planks are assembled. In competition, the yawl, when rigged to the foresail, is crewed by a maximum of 14 people and carries sails that can exceed 80m2. The gommier is a monoxyle boat made from a hollowed-out trunk, the architecture of which is directly inherited from the pirogue-building techniques of the Amerindians, the island's first occupants.
It should be noted that gum tree construction had already responded to an initial shortage, since the tree trunks were no longer large enough to ensure sufficient depth for the pirogues, so the excavated trunk was used as a hull on which the planking was mounted. Gum tree crews are made up of 10 people, and sails are up to 60m2.
At the navigation level
Both boats have no keel. To create counterweight, the crew abseil up the "upright timbers" that spike the windward side of the canoe. The round yawl is steered by a paddle, which is placed on one of the five notches at the stern of the boat. Three or four men are assigned to its operation. This paddle can also be used for sculling in calm weather. On the other hand, a rudder fixed to the hull is used to steer the gumboat, and the crew members use "bois-virés" to counterbalance it.
