TESTIMONY. Michel Douce, owner of the Bugaled Breizh, recounts the day his ship sank

Michel Douce is a sturdy guy with a benevolent smile, a fisherman. He was the owner and skipper of the Bugaled Breizh, a 24m trawler based in Loctudy (Finistère). His life “changed” on Thursday, January 15, 2004. That day, Michel Douce was on the ground, at his home in Loctudy. For several months, his back has been causing him too much pain to embark. The boat and crew are fishing off Great Britain.

Just after the 1 p.m. news, the phone rings at Michel Douce's. His wife picks up and hands him the handset. At the end of the line, his friend Andrew, captain of the port of Newlyn in the United Kingdom. “He told me that the Bugaled Breizh had capsized. That the helicopter had just taken off for the search, but that he did not know if there were any survivors”.

frozen, petrified

The trawler has indeed disappeared, off Cape Liazrd (United Kingdom), at 1:24 p.m. (French time). The five sailors on board, Yves Gloaguen, Pascal Le Floch, Patrick Gloaguen, Georges Lemétayer and Éric Guillamet died in the sinking.

Just after Andrew's phone call, Michel Douce calls Bugaled's satellite phone. No answer. It is already too late. “It's as if the house had fallen on my back…”, he blurts out. For his part, his wife, Marcelle, says that she felt her body “freeze. I was petrified”.

A submarine ?

All the elements revolve in the head of the shipowner: “Where they fished, it's a place that we knew by heart. The weather was good. The very navigable area. Nothing that the crew wouldn't have been able to handle”. The idea that his boat was hit by a submarine touches him, but he keeps it to himself.

The same evening, he learns that two bodies have been found. The men are identified by their tattoos: they are Yves Gloaguen and Pascal Le Floch.

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"The most difficult day"

That night, Michel Douce did not sleep. But "the most difficult day" is to follow. On Friday, he leaves to visit each family of the five sailors of the Bugaled Breizh. “I had to tell them that they would never see their loved ones again. They had so many questions. And I had no answer. Very clever whoever knows how to find the right words in such circumstances,” he says, still touched, seventeen years later.

On Saturday, Michel Douce is summoned by the maritime gendarmes at Guilvinec to make a statement. When he returns home, two Navy officers are waiting for him. “They immediately told me that there were no French submarines in the area at the time of the sinking”. Looking back, “it was strange. I had not mentioned this possibility”. The soldiers offered him to board the Andromeda mine hunter to go and do a reconnaissance on the wreckage.

On Sunday, the first images of the Bugaled, lying more than 80 m deep, are captured by the Navy. “They only filmed the starboard side. We saw a big dent in the hull,” explains Michel. Despite his requests, the military refused to send the camera robot to the port (left) side. “I always wonder why…”

Twelve years of trial

These first images will first direct the investigation towards the boarding of the Bugaled Breizh by a rogue freighter. An international hunt will fail. In July 2004, when Michel Douce's ship was refloated, it was discovered that the depression was symmetrical on both sides of the hull. The collision thesis can no longer hold. “We could have known it right away if they had sent the robot to the port side,” complains Michel Douce.

After the shipwreck, the legal aspect begins. It will last, in France, twelve years. While the shipowner, the families and a good number of sea professionals are convinced of the involvement of a submarine in the drama, the courts have validated the thesis of a fishing accident.

Full confidence in the crew

More than seventeen years after the tragedy, the shipowner remains convinced that a submarine, which would have snagged the cables of the trawl, is responsible for the sinking. Because Michel Douce assures us: his boat was solid. And he had full confidence in his crew: “Yves, I sailed with him for several years. He was used to Bugaled and replaced me as boss for six months. Georges, the mechanic, he had also been on board for years. Patrick, the second engineer, was the sailor I had worked with the longest. Pascal had two or three years with us. And Eric, it's been a year. I had worked as a sailor with his father,” he says.

For Michel Douce, the whirlwind following the death of his crew and the sinking of his boat “lasted for years”. Years during which he was able to count on the support of his wife, Marcelle, always present, discreet but solid, by his side, wherever he went.

The disappointments

"Even today, with the approach of January 15, it's hard," breathes Marcelle, also drawn into the spiral of this affair. "It will be until the end," predicts Michel Douce.

At the dawn of the inquest which opens on October 4, 2021 at the criminal court in London (United Kingdom), Michel Douce has chosen to remain in the background. “With justice, there have been so many disappointments that I don't expect much… Even if all I want is for the truth to finally come out”.