Lionel Le Brenn is our captain of the month for March! He has been sailing professionally for over 10 years, although his love and passion for sailing goes back much further, and has worked across the industry as both a delivery and charter skipper. He has extensive knowledge and experience of sailing in the Mediterranean, but has also sailed across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans – most notably helping to create and develop a charter project in Sri Lanka in 2017, charting new sailing routes. Lionel’s love of freedom and adventure drove him to a life at sea; his respect for the ocean comes across in how he approaches every yacht delivery with care and attention.

Lionel is popular with clients and has worked on owner assisted passages, providing expert guidance and knowledge to new owners as they sail their new yacht home. Check out one of his most recent owner assisted passages with a client transporting their new catamaran from France to Portugal. The owner made a great video expressing how much he enjoyed the experience.

In order to showcase Lionel as the dedicated, conscientious and reliable skipper that he is, we asked him a couple of questions, covering his sailing origins, career highlights and future plans.

How did you get into sailing and what has led you to continue with it as a career?

My paternal family is from Brittany and has lived by the sea for a long time. I started racing every winter when I was 16 at the time in La Trinité sur Mer, which was the meeting place for sailing in France, then I never stopped racing and cruising a little everywhere on the sea. After a successful professional career in the world of distribution, I created my own consulting and training company. But 10 years ago, I decided to live around my passion which is the sea. I have a validates  captain’s diploma and since then I have been delivering sailboats, a job in which I find both this feeling of freedom, autonomy and being close to nature.

What has been your career/sailing highlight so far?

Beyond the victories in regattas which were moments of great joy, the most enriching experience that I had was the chance to live was to make the first crossing of the Adam’Bridge in 2017 with Sapphire, a catamaran made in Sri Lanka. This passage between India and Sri Lanka not mapped was both a return to the sources of navigation, to find a passage between the different sandy islands, and a strong sharing with my Sri Lankan crew and the populations on site in very significant conditions of autonomy (no port, little reliable weather).

What is the job’s greatest challenge?

To manage between speed and safety, because we have to deliver a new boat to our client after 4 or 6 weeks of crossing. I always tell myself if I buy this boat I want it to be “Perfect” on arrival ..

Where do you see yourself in the future?

In the same place, I am writing these lines in the south of Sardinia and I will have to be in Palermo in 2 days to refuel, for delivery to Croatia…I love it.

Do you have any advice for those looking to become a delivery captain?

Beyond getting the right qualifications, the ideal is to participate in winter offshore deliveries with confirmed captains to learn. This job is a job of knowing how and knowing how to be where we learn every day. Moreover it is necessary to always keep in mind that it is not our boat but that of a customer who is impatiently waiting for her.

What is your favourite knot?

The double sheet bend, I like it because it allows to hoist the courtesy flag when we arrive in new territorial waters and that means that we have arrived.

Captain Lionel Le Brenn’s Profile and CV.

Want to work with Lionel? Contact Us.