In the last two years in 2024 and 2025, Les Glénans experimented a new type of course in English for an international audience at the rate, in Marseillan, of two one-week courses a year. There were courses in Concarneau, too.
Courses in Marseillan
All courses in Marseillan were cruising level one and two and the goal at the end of the week is to feel confident manoeuvering a sailing yacht under sail in light winds. Starting from Marseillan on the Thau open lake in the sunny and windy Southern coast of France close to the city of Sète, we sail the first day on the lake to get acquainted with the boat.
We then sail on the open sea between Port Camargue and Gruissan after going through the city of Sète on the canals with five bridges opening and closing twice a day making it a very scenic and interesting journey. In May, we had strong NorthWesterly to start with, a lot of reefing and the trip was a La Grande Motte and back. In October, the conditions were opposite with SouthEasterly and we chose Grau d’Agde instead on the other side.
Crew
— In 2024, two courses were on offer but one was cancelled for lack of participants. The other one saw a very international crew from Holland, Italy, Germany and even one for the US and we all spoke English all the time
— In May 2025, we had the same situation with a very international crew from England, Finland, Holland, Italy and Portugal. English was also used all the time
— In Ocober 2025, the situation was different as half the crew was French and had signed up for the course because the other courses in French were full. However, everybody was happy to learn how to sail in English and we used a combination of 3 languages : French, English and Frenglish
— Between those 3 courses, 15 students : 4 women and 11 men
TTT Courses
TTT, Teach The Trainer or T3 courses were organized back in 2022 and 2023 to kick start the program of English courses and help instructors teach in English. A lot of teaching material became available beginning of 2023 which was very helpful. To continue this program and train new trainers, we plan to organize another T3 course in Marseillan in 2026 and a date has been set to October 17th for a 4 day course on site.
2026 Program
This program has been successful and we plan to continue in 2026 with 2 more courses. You can register for these courses by calling the Glénans directly on 09.70.26.44.00 and also ask for more information with email yves.holvoet@gmail.com.
| Cruising level : | Location | Starting date |
| 1 | Concarneau | 11/04 |
| 2 | Marseillan | 11/04 |
| 2 | Concarneau | 18/04 |
| 2 | Concarneau | 01/08 |
| 3 | Concarneau | 25/04 |
| 3 | Concarneau | 08/08 |
| 2 | Marseillan | 12/09 |
Yves Holvoet