Team

 

- Michel Ollivier: Operations Manager

"Ocean racing is the most demanding market in the world and the construction limits must be permanently pushed back to boost the performance and safety of the top sailors. The techniques we have developed on racing yachts enable customised cruising craft to be built to an exemplary finish. Our working methods provide us with the opportunity to make significant savings as regards the weight estimate; enabling faster crossings, an improved finish with the use of female moulds, as well as an increased lifespan through the use of high resistance fibres and epoxy resins. The structure is lighter, more reliable, stiffer and optimised for performance, added to which the composite enables the fabrication of all kinds of parts, furniture and accommodation space... on request! There are no limits to our composite creations as regards the size of our workshops, which are 45 to 50 m long by 27 m wide and 8.50 m high..."

- Laurent Rivals: Head of manufacturing and Human Resources

An experienced sailor he has spent time in every post and belonged to a whole host of renowned teams with talented skippers: from Serge Madec (Jet service) to Jean Maurel (Elf Aquitaine), where he was in charge of all the core logistics, Lionel Lemonchois (Gitana 11), Marc Guillemot (La Trinitaine), Philippe Facque and Loïc Caradec (Royale)... With a passion for the world of racing, technical innovation and the strength that can be built up through teamwork, he puts the skills he has acquired to full use at CDK.

 

- Nicolas Baral: Engineer in the research department

"On leaving my engineering college, I did a thesis on composites and immediately had the opportunity to work at CDK Technologies on the maxi trimaran Banque Populaire V. My role consists of assisting Hubert Desjoyeaux in the various areas of the production sites. I make sure that the work fully corresponds with the architects' plans and the modifications desired by the team and the skippers. This process constantly calls the different elements of your work into question, whether it relates to modifying a part in line with new ergonomics or incorporating a new system (hook, ball and socket joint on a spreader...). Our role is that of an interface between the designers, the technical team and the boat's skipper, as well as the manufacturing by our workshops and our technicians. The secret is to be tuned into everyone in a bid to find practical and achievable solutions."

- Matthieu Kloek: Engineer in the research department

"In 2007, I joined the CDK team to assist Hubert Desjoyeaux in drawing up and monitoring the build schedule for Banque Populaire V. I put together the build estimates from the architects' specifications and drafts. I constantly check that the creation corresponds with the estimate. Another aspect of my role consists of developing manufacturing ranges which adhere to the plans. I remain the constant interface between the research department and the workshop."

 

Philippe Facque: Managing director

He took command of the company back in 1993 by incorporating a few shareholders to recapitalise the yard. The resulting sizeable potential of the company enables high-tech parts to be built in a range of different domains (sailing, racing, fishing, military and food-processing...). He has brought rigour to the company as well as keeping up constant investment to further improve the quality of output (oven, furnace, autoclave...) In the area immediately surrounding the Keroman yard are all the necessary trade associations to maintain and build a large ship... CDK technologies is now able to accommodate sizeable craft thanks to the technical means available in its local fishing port, which are as substantial as those in nearby Lorient. The objectives of the yard are as much to do with the construction of large boats as the upkeep of maxi yachts.

Hubert Desjoyeaux: By Olivier Chapuis

Since 1985, Hubert Desjoyeaux has ranked as one of the best builders of composite race boats in the world. His list of creations, at the head of CDK, is an impressive one. His future parents (Voiles et Voiliers magazine No.473, July 2010), Henri Desjoyeaux and May Thibierge, were married on 7 February 1953. Henri was a frequent visitor to the Glénan archipelago from the end of the war, where he finished up working in the Resistance with Philippe and Hélène Viannay in the “Défense de la France” (Defence of France) group, before they co-founded the Centre Nautique des Glénans (Les Glénans Watersports Centre) in the spring of 1947. May scoured La Forêt bay in North-West Brittany aboard Kotick, the Dragon which had just been built for her by Fernand Hervé in La Rochelle (1948). The helmswoman and her boat attracted the attention of the former mountain dweller turned sailor. Jean arrived in 1954, the eldest of seven children, of which Hubert (1958), Bertrand (1961) and Michel (1965) were to be the other three sailors. In 1955, Henri and May bought a plot of land on the Kerleven headland to set up a yard for yachts the following year. It’s here, just a stone’s throw from the mud flats, that Port-La-Forêt came into being in 1972, which is where the Desjoyeaux’ sons and daughters grew up, amidst the boats that were wintering or being repaired there.

Jean and Hubert sailed the Vaurien and then the 420, taking part in the races organised at the famous Cap-Coz watersports centre, along with the brothers, Luc and Philippe Poupon, the Le Bihans and Jean Le Cam, with whom Hubert would then team up (a lot of others became regulars at the centre, including Roland Jourdain who was to become a great friend of Michel’s). Equally, all of them benefited from the boats the Penthers lent the Desjoyeaux brothers, including the 5.50 Metre JI Némésis. During this time, using all the offcuts kicking about the yard, Hubert and his brothers built some remote-controlled yachts, which were increasingly inventive and sophisticated. Hubert even trialled an articulated wing on his M class.

Next came the live-aboard and the winter training sessions with the Société Nautique in nearby Concarneau. Hubert competed in these in the late seventies, notably sailing aboard the Armagnac Mervent belonging to the Le Cam family and helmed by Jean, or on the half-tonner Farrceur belonging to Patrick Morvan. The three of them were already inseparable on monohulls. They were going to be the same on Morvan’s first catamaran Jet Services, designed and built by Gilles Ollier in his yard, Multiplast, then located in Nantes.

In this way, Hubert discovered the ocean-going multihull. Whilst he was envisaging a career in naval architecture, his studies in Industrial Art and Design took a back seat in his final year as he was keen to take part in the construction of Jet Services II at Multiplast. At the end of 1983, he continued in the same vein with the catamaran Crédit-Agricole III skippered by Philippe Jeantot. This legendary boat – Bruno Peyron’s future Club Explorer, is a multihull which unquestionably boasts the greatest number of race miles under her belt without structural damage – which is testimony to an early mastery of carbon (by Gilles Ollier, her architect and builder at Multiplast, where a number of youngsters were trained). Victorious in the Course de l’Europe 1985 with the group from Gremlins, the experience was to have a lasting effect on Hubert (a crew member aboard the boat in the Quebec/Saint-Malo 1984), who had his head in resin from then on.

At the start of the OSTAR, in June 1984 in Plymouth, Hubert Desjoyeaux, Jean Le Cam, their friend Gaëtan Gouérou (today’s chief representative of IMOCA, whose name graces Gouërou Cove where Port-La-Forêt came into being in 1972) and the naval architect Marc Van Peteghem (who’d just designed his first race boat with Vincent Lauriot-Prévost, the trimaran Gérard Lambert skippered by Vincent Lévy) confirm the project they’d initiated the previous winter. With the large trimaran Yvon Fauconnier has in mind, they decide to go for it and rent a shed from Henri Desjoyeaux to house their yard, christened CDK Composites.


Poupon is first to make it to Newport but Fauconnier is declared winner for the additional time he spent rescuing Jeantot, who capsized on the aforementioned catamaran. Despite this, Yvon’s sponsor wanted to let him go. As such the two youngsters find themselves in debt before they’ve even begun... Marc went back to his drawing board and left the way clear for Bertrand Desjoyeaux, who completed the same Industrial Art and Design course that Hubert had packed in before the finish line. The following year was synonymous with a time when things really started to take shape for the group of friends. They were at the heart of one of the most hair-raising adventures in French multihull circles. Initiated by Gilles Gahinet, who was not to see its success (he died of cancer on 10 October 1984 at 35 years of age), the Formula 40 was not just the precursor of the current Extreme 40s and AC45s, but also the testing ground for the future ORMA multihulls.

At that point Hubert managed the construction of Biscuits Cantreau, Jean Le Cam’s trimaran designed by Van Peteghem/Lauriot-Prévost, with Bertrand doing the calculations. It was to be equipped with variable angle foils and her builder was to race aboard this trimaran, which proved to be untouchable in the light airs but laboured in the breeze compared with the catamarans. This wasn’t to be the case for Biscuits Cantreau II, which swept to victory in the 1987 championship and was the true precursor to ocean-going trimarans, the likes of which were soon to depose the catamarans. The first big order was Olivier de Kersauson’s Poulain, which Marc Van Peteghem presented to his friends from La-Forêt-Fouesnant. It’s here that Tabarly’s former right-hand man christened the area the “Vallée des fous” (Valley of the Madmen”, a label still applied to the site which accommodates the Finistère/Course au large sailing hub (unofficially in 1990, officially since 1992, Pôle France in 1995). Launched in 1986, Kersauson’s trimaran was to rack up over 150,000 miles in her various versions, until the time when Francis Joyon’s Idec beat her first solo round the world record (2004).

Among the vast number of creations which were to follow is the notable Bagages Superior, skippered by Alain Gautier, winner of the Vendée Globe 1992-1993. However, this first major victory wouldn’t be enough to avoid the economic difficulties, which had been a recurring theme since 1988. At that time, sailing wasn’t yet the professional circuit it has since become. Gaétan and Bertrand had been gone a while when Hubert began tearing his hair out in the face of another shareholder whose rather shaky support was packing an extra punch on top of the memorable perils of the sea. As a result, the capsize of Bottin Entreprises in the double-handed transatlantic race Lorient/Saint-Barts/Lorient 1989 earned Éric Tabarly, who was helming at the time, a real roasting from his co-skipper Jean Le Cam (the first and doubtless the last time Tabarly was to be treated like an idiot!). ‘King’ Jean knew how serious the consequences of this wreck would be for his friend Hubert, CDK being the owner of the boat.

The friendship was deep-rooted however. CDK Technologies enjoyed a boost of capital in 1993, which enabled it to grow in size in Port-La-Forêt, before investing a lot more recently in the Lorient site and its subsidiary Kéroman Technologies (45 employees across both the sites). In this way, some new shareholders entered the frame, including Philippe Facque, thanks largely to Gaétan, a precious figure working in the background. Facque, former co-skipper of the giant catamaran Royale with Loïc Caradec, created the Ocean Racing Multihull Association (ORMA) the same year. Diversification also saved the business with Hubert fabricating composite parts for submarines from the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN), a company which serves France’s naval defence industry.

Although he’s an excellent multihull specialist – central hull and assembly of Michel Desjoyeaux’ Géant (winner of the Route du Rhum 2002) or Franck Cammas’ Groupama 2 (triumphant victor of the major ORMA grands prix), and more recently the piloting of the Banque Populaire V project, which is the biggest racing trimaran in the world, and the steering and assembly of the MOD 70s -, it’s also the monohull which provides him with the most in-depth collaboration with his brother Michel and gives his work as an artist free rein.

The Mini-Transat 1991 – Michel’s only solo transoceanic experience prior to the Transat 2000 – has a rather special place in this family saga. With his brothers Hubert and Bertrand, supported by the logistics provided by May which nourished all her brood, the Desjoyeaux brothers made Fouesnant/Station voile (a Fauroux design from 1989, code name Amélie, given by Michel and his companion Régine) into a testing ground for the Mini 6.50s... and the IMOCA 60 footers. For the first time, an oceanic race boat, even before Isabelle Autissier’s Écureuil, was equipped with a canting keel. The adjustable bowsprit also enabled you to gybe from the helm, which then became a trend on the Minis.

The mast, an Andersen carbon profile customised by CDK, also proved to be a real little high-tech jewel. It was equipped with lateral Spectra shrouds above the third spreaders, spliced onto the spar, like the runners and the backstay. It took nerve for the time… but the use of fibres in rigging is commonplace today. As regards the horseshoe-shaped vang track, this enables you to sail with a tensioned leech. In 1991, Michel announced that on his next prototype, a single track would serve as the vang and the sheet, by going right the way around the boat to aft. This is exactly what he went on to do on PRB in 2000, the first boat specially designed for Desjoyeaux, which was also a development of a lot of other innovations that had been mulled over between times, notably with Hubert.

Finally, victorious in the second leg of the Mini Transat 1991, but a long way off the top spot overall due to rudder issues in the first leg following impact with something in the water, Michel Desjoyeaux never forgot that the floating object was going to be a major risk factor. This led to the exterior, kick-up rudders on PRB, which revealed the true extent of their efficiency during the Vendée Globe 2000 and were subsequently adopted by all.

Embodying the technological history of ocean racing over the past thirty years, a rigorous manufacturer as well as, and above all, an ingenious craftsman, living for his family and his passion and never lacking ideas for ways to resolve an unforeseen issue, Hubert was to successively build PRB – winner of the Vendée Globe 2000-2001 (with Mich’ Desj’) and 2004-2005 (with Vincent Riou) -, Foncia I winner of the Vendée Globe 2008-2009 (with Michel) and Foncia II which he made in record time.

It was quite a feat for the year 2010, which unfortunately concluded with the devastating discovery of the disease. At Voiles & Voiliers, we share in the sorrow of Monique, his wife (née Le Cam), and their four daughters, as well as the whole Desjoyeaux family and their friends. On Sunday 15 May, they took his ashes to the Glénan Islands. In this archipelago that Hubert held so dear, they will be scattered for all the upcoming tides in the dawn of time.