Bilingual readers who appreciate real life stories about the sea will love: “On l’appelait Bugaled Breizh”. This is the story of a trawler that sinks with all crew and equipment, while fishing in the Cornouailles region. Experienced sailors were on board and the weather was fair. Other trawlers were present in the area and their captains were maintaining contact with each other by radio. Suddenly, the Bugaled Breizh’s captain mayday call was received. Just a few words, not even enough time to complete his sentence.
We soon discover that the trawlers were not alone in the area. There were also nuclear submarines on an exercise in shallow waters. And there is a possibility that a submarine from an uninvited country could have also been watching the manoeuvers, well protected in the obscurity and silence.
The book raises the possibility that a fast moving submarine could have been entangled in the Bugaled Breizh’s fishing net, thus destabilizing the trawler and sinking it, without giving the captain any time to react. As for keeping the truth hidden about the accident,it is believed that if the facts were openly revealed to the general public, it would create strong political tensions due to admitting that an undetected submarine was closely watching the military exercise. The book enumerates possible reasons explaining the presence of the foreign submarine in the area.
The enquiry, or shall I say inquiries, have been stalled for over ten years now. But as questions have been asked over the years to a vast network of interested parties, a better idea of what could have been the causes behind that drama has emerged.
This is a really interesting book, signed by the reknowned writer Yann Queffélec (Goncourt prize 1985 for Les Noces barbares) also helped by Pascal Bodéré, a journalist known as one of the best connaisseur of the Bugaled Breizh affair.
Éditions du Rocher / L’Archipel, 2014.
ISBN 978-2-8098-1378-4