Yvan Griboval was born on 7 January 1957 in Mont-Saint-Aignan (near Rouen in the French Department Seine-Maritime) from Cécile Griboval born Toutain (1924-2012) and from Roger Griboval (1908-1997). Roger Griboval was an impressionist painter from the Ecole de Rouen, renowned for his talent as an aquarellist. Only child, Yvan Griboval discovered the nature accompanying his father painting en plein-air: Higher-Normandy coast (from Dieppe to Fécamp) and at the edge of the Seine around Rouen. He spent all his weekends and holidays in Saint-Valéry-en-Caux, where he was taught very young to fish on the sea, and above all to discover the marine environment and to the sailing competition on Requin.
From sailing to mediaSelf-made man with a scholarship in Rouen (Institution Join Lambert), Yvan Griboval has early married his passions for sailing and for media harmoniously combining the job of professional sportsman, as from 1975 (regatta and offshore racing) and of journalist-reporter, as from 1979 (written press and TV) in some of the most renowned French media: L’Équipe, Agence France Presse, Voiles & Voiliers, France Télévision… Yvan Griboval worked as a journalist reporter (text and photo), editor-in-chief, editor (written press), presenter, director and producer (TV).
Yvan Griboval has worked as a "factory skipper" at the beginning of the 80’s for the Chantiers Bénéteau and sometimes also for the chantiers Jeanneau and Kirié, for which he won many classical French races: Semaine de La Rochelle, Semaine de Marseille, Course Croisière Edhec, etc. Yvan Griboval has run several transatlantic races for the Chantiers Bénéteau: Twostar on First, La Rochelle - La Nouvelle Orléans on Maison Phénix, Transat en Double on Maison Phénix III, where he finished second or third in his class. Running in the Route du Rhum 82 on Maison Phénix II, again on a sailing ship Bénéteau, he has to give up because of a breakdown of autopilot.
Yvan Griboval took part in the win of L’Esprit d’Équipe with Lionel Péan in the Whitbread 1985-86 (now the Volvo Ocean Race), the crewed race around the world. This French win in 1986 has only been renewed in 2012 (Franck Cammas and his crew on Groupama).
Yvan Griboval has then put his experience and know-how at the service of companies as from 1987–88, to guide them in their event-driven communication processes based on the exploitation of the Yachting in general and the Sailing, of its competitions, of its champions.
In this framework, Yvan Griboval has developed original media coverage methods for the events he is working for, offering his partners an optimised media exposure. He has guided his customers and partners in some of the most renowned sportive sailing events: America’s Cup, Volvo Ocean Race (ex-Whitbread), transatlantic races, World championships, Tour de France à la Voile, etc.
Yvan Griboval is the founder and president of the company SailingOne (SAS)[1] ever since its inception (December 1994) after the takeover of the company KL Organisation, in whose creation he was involved in 1990, before purchasing it in December 1992, and then transforming it.
Yvan Griboval has created the Trophée of Sailing Champions in 1990 on the request of Pierre and Antoine Legris for Chantier KL Nautique. As from its first edition, the French version of this event was named the Trophée Clairefontaine [2] [3] thanks to the partnership established in the spring 1990 with the eponymous papermaker group (Groupe des Papeteries de Clairefontaine). This event is run every year, in mid-September. Created in La Trinité-sur-Mer, the Trophée Clairefontaine has also been organised in Cap d’Agde, in Valencia (Spain) and in La Grande Motte.[4] [5] Other Trophée des Champions have been organised in Marseille, Cadiz (Spain) and Beyrouth (Lebanon). The Trophée des Champions is a brand filed by SailingOne, registered at the French National Industrial Property Institute (INPI). All rights are reserved. SailingOne exclusively manages these rights.
The four key point of the Trophée des Champions are: 1- Bringing together great sailing champions from different international sailing disciplines; 2- Providing them with exactly the same equipment specially designed and exclusively used for this event, the SailingOne 25 one-design catamaran imagined by Yvan Griboval, designed by Cabinet Van Peteghem - Lauriot-Prévost and implemented by Patrick Tabarly and Serge Madec; 3- Carrying out very short competitions (8 to 10 min) with specific and unique rules, in front of the public, making it a show free of charge and easy to understand for all; 4- Staging these competitions in order to make the show easy to use for media.
Yvan Griboval is renowned as one of the first founders and producers of sailing-show events (as from 1990) transforming this sport with competitions sometimes abstruse in real sailing shows, without making the sportive aspect weaker, quite the opposite. His innovations have been taken over with success by many organisers to create different circuits for multihulls: D35 Championship on the Leman Lake, Extreme Series and AC45 World Series in the whole world, etc.
In November 2006, Yvan Griboval creates the OceanoScientific Programme [6] [7] for SailingOne. The OceanoScientific Programme[8] is the set if activities designed to enable the international scientific community and the IPCC* to enrich their knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change, through the repeated collection of quality data at the ocean - atmosphere interface (oceanographic and atmospheric), especially on sea routes subject to little or no scientific exploration, aboard all kind of vessels but especially sailing ships; guided by JCOMM, the Joint WMO** - IOC*** Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology of the UN. OceanoScientific is a brand filed by SailingOne, registered at the French National Industrial Property Institute (INPI). All rights are reserved. SailingOne exclusively manages these rights.
IPCC, WMO and IOC are specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN)
Other references au Programme OceanoScientific[9] [10] [11] [12]