Known as a photographer and writer, Ella Maillart, born in 1903, was the most gifted yachtswoman of her generation. Between her participation in the Olympic Games, long voyages of initiation and the practice of numerous sports, she was an essential player in the history of yachting.
Text: Carinne Bertola
As a child, Ella Maillart lived at Le Creux-de-Genthod from May to October. Encouraged by her mother to follow her aspirations, she developed great sporting skills. It was her friend Hermine de Saussure, a year older than her, who introduced her to sailing. The two girls explored the bay of Creux-de-Genthod in canoes, and Ella Maillart won her first regatta at the age of 14. Passionate about sailing but without the means, she had no choice but to obtain sailboats on loan. In 1918, Poodle II enabled her to sail on Petit-Lac. She entered the 6.50 m regattas, which ended in three withdrawals. Her old SNG one-design from 1900 was no match for her modern steeds. In 1922, the 6.50 m Gipsy boosted her ambitions. She won the Geneva-Rolle. Then, in front of some thirty competitors, she won the Coupe Marcet, the most prestigious challenge on the lake. In fact, she was admitted to the SNG on the strength of her talent alone. In 1923, a cruise on Perlette with Hermine de Saussure along the Côte d’Azur, interspersed with regattas, earned them the Yacht Club de France medal. Not afraid to break away from the usual codes, the young woman likes to take care of the upkeep of her boats. After a few regattas on a brand-new 6.50 m Anker, she wasted no time in corresponding with Quernel, Gipsy‘s architect, about modernizing her rig! She’s only 20, with a solid reputation and a fierce determination. Virginie Hériot invites her, all expenses paid, to take part in the Cannes Regatta on the schooner Ailée…
First female Olympic coxswain
At the beginning of 1924, Lake Geneva selections for the 8th Olympiad were announced, but no one took the risk. No 6 or 8mJI raced on the lake, which remained faithful to the Godinet rule, and dinghies were rare, as they were preferred to canoes. With no experience of dinghies, Ella Mail- lart is up to the challenge. She represented Switzerland in Meulan, the site of the coronation of the de Pourtalès couple in 1900. At the age of 21, the only woman among the 17 competing nations, she became the first woman in the world to helm a sailboat in Olympic competition! Not daring to report a competitor, she finished ninth and her performance went unnoticed. Yet she was the female exception who paved the way for future female competitors. Unlike her predecessors, her selection was not due to her wealth or marriage, but solely to her talent. La Suisse Sportive made no mistake when, in 1925, it paid glowing praise to the woman it considered the great pioneer of Swiss sport in field field hockey, sailing and skiing. In 1928, the Frenchwoman Virginie Hériot became the first coxswain to win a gold medal aboard her 8mJI. On the Swiss side, Nicole Meylan succeeded Ella Maillart in the Olympic selection in… 1992. As for Maillart’s result at the 1924 Games, it remained the best achieved by a Swiss woman until 2006!
From foam to captain
Her ambition came at a high price, as her sports training made her miss her studies. At the age of 22 and without a job, she left for England to perfect her language skills. It wasn’t long before she was hired as a cabin boy and cook. Aboard Volunteer, a former Thames barge converted into a cruising yacht, she rose through the ranks from ship’s boy to deckhand to captain. Becoming an excellent sailor was the only way for her to live “an intelligent life away from the excesses of civilization”. Following the success of their first cruise, Hermine de Saussure invited her to share her expeditions on Bonita in 1925 and Atalante in 1926. She took charge of preparing the boats and acted as first mate on board.
Back in England, Ella Maillart embarked on Insoumise hoping to sail to the Pacific, a childhood dream fueled by her encounters with Alain Gerbault and Ralph Stock. Hoping to make sailing her profession, she also developed her talents as a photographer and journalist. An invitation on the Shamrock IV, in the company of filmmaker Jean Grémillon, gave her the opportunity to take her most beautiful shots. Alas, the Depression of 1929 wiped out any possibility of making a living from boating articles, and it was on dry land that she found success in 1930 after a trip to Russia. Sailing became a hobby she cherished, guesting on Windrush, Forban, Tsu Hang… It was aboard the Swan Mariepier that, with Georges Duvaud, she undertook a final 330-mile cruise from Grenada to Antigua. She was 88 years old!
All in all, Ella Maillart took part in almost sixty competitions in the 6.5 and 8.50 m classes – some of which included nine legs – at the helm of Gipsy on the lake, or Rose de Mai, Feu Follet or Chardon Bleu at sea. She usually finished in the top five. Unlike her contemporary, the famous Louis Noverraz, she was not invited to helm the latest boats launched, but had to make do with outdated boats. To be the first woman in the world to helm an Olympic dinghy was something of a laughing matter on Lake Geneva at the time! Between 1922 and 1925, as part of a women’s crew, she achieved firsts on Lake Geneva and in the Mediterranean. Her various ocean voyages took her between 8,000 and 10,000 miles. She sailed on some thirty boats, sometimes for several months at a time. Two years before her death in 1997, she made one last trip to Le Creux-de-Genthod in the company of Léon Béchard. On the 7mJI Endrick, a Fife design on Lake Geneva since 1913 that she had admired as a teenager, she concluded by saying: “This time, we’ve come full circle.
Carinne Bertola is the author of Ella Maillart, navigatrice : libre comme l’eau , published by Glénat. Thanks to the holdings of the Bibliothèque de Genève and Photo Élysée, this book reveals the little-known sailing career of Ella Maillart. It is also an exceptional testimony to the beginnings of Swiss yachting, and not just for women. An exhibition at the Musée Bolle in Morges recounts Ella Maillart’s Olympic adventure and exploits on Lake Geneva.
