The idea of this site is to collect and provide archive documents regarding « l’Amicale Internationale des capitaines au long cours Cap-Horniers » [1937-2003], International Association of Cape Horners.
These unique archives hold very valuable information on an epoch that will never return… It was the wish of the Association to pass on the memory of this epic, as presented by Captain Roger GHYS, President of the Belgian–French section, in the last « Letter from the Cap », July 2003.
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Sources :
✔ Archives of the association kept at the public archives of Saint-Malo,
✔ Collection of the Saint-Malo Museum,
✔ Private collections of descendants or close relatives of Cap Horner whom I
thank for their contributions,
✔ Press articles.
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« Never again will we see these magnificent ships proudly coming into harbor under their impressive sails and with marks under their rusty hull left after months and months on the high seas.
They are gone forever, these crews of Jean Le Gouin, old salt jack-afloat, with their dark faces burnt by the tropical sun and the salt, who could have been mistaken for rovers, when arriving from long faraway cruises, with their bushy beards and their clothes patched up of ill-assorted bits and pieces.
Also finished those times when these foreign-going ship captains, “sheet-eaters” and “sail-tighteners”, the only master on board, but on whom everything depended. This epoch of the apogee of the sail, the English call ‘the golden age’ is no more.
Maybe it is precisely because it belongs to the past that there is now more interest shown and people want to know about life on board an ocean-going sail-boat. »
Captain Louis LACROIX
Documents d'archives de l'AICH
Amicale Internationale des capitaines au long cours Cap-Horniers