Lorient, France, Groupama sailing team's cradle and base

9th stopover : Lorient

L'Orient (the East) came into being in 1666, when the East India Company created by Colbert in 1664 settled in Port-Louis, and took its name from that of a boat "Le Soleil d'Orient" (the Eastern Sun), built in the boatyard positioned where the Scorff and the Blavet cross. The main operational base for German submarines during the Second World War, it was a town bombed by the Allies and destroyed and evacuated in 1943.

Rebuilt after the war, Lorient referred to as An Oriant in Breton, today features all the facilities of a metropolis: the university, the Moustoir stadium, the Grand Théâtre... and six ports: the military port, the marina, the fishing port (the 2nd largest in France), the commercial port, the passenger port and recently the "race" port. The former submarine base has been converted and now accommodates an "offshore racing" hub and, since 2008, the Cité de la Voile Eric Tabarly (Eric Tabarly Sailing City). Populated by 59,000 inhabitants, Lorient is famous for its Interceltique festival, a global gathering of contemporary expression from Celtic countries, which each August, groups together 650,000 visitors.