- Brest - Douarnenez '96

The foot stomping audience of the Irish folk group reeled across the quayside. Cradling my freshly bought baguette, I struggled through the swaying crowd to the quayside ladder and climbed down onto the bowsprit end of an English smack. I worked my way along the spar to her bows and then crossed the deck of the langoustier alongside her. Baggywrinkle was right at the end of the raft up, outside a German cutter and a clinker dinghy called Frejala. Under a slowly flapping DCA burgee, Frejala's crew were eating shellfish. A bottle of wine was open, their glasses were full, and they lounged contentedly in the sun, smiling up at me.

"Fred," I asked, "how can you possibly describe to anyone who hasn't been here how wonderful it is?"

In a single, practised movement Fred Winstanley threw away the remains of the shell fish he had been eating and reached for another. "If they want to know they ought to come," he said. "Look, you must try one of these crevettes - they're wonderful."

The Brest ‘96 traditional boat festival did indeed defy description. Two thousand five hundred boats had rendezvoused at the westernmost tip of the continent, to yarn and to drink, to eat and to make music - and to darken the water with their sails. Fifteen thousand crew members from thirty nations joined the crowds of visitors that thronged the seven kilometres of quayside. We packed into the bars, listened to the bands playing on the quays, or simply sat on deck in the warm dusk, soaking up the atmosphere. It was four years since Brest ‘92, and we were all glad to be back.

"This is the most marvellous place to be in all of creation," enthuses my deck log. Admittedly I was hung-over from the crew party the night before, but I had spent the day belting about the Rade de Brest on an almost continuous broad reach. Tideways are rather heavy clinker dinghies and do not plane easily, but it was a good Force 4 and Baggywrinkle surfed along in a cloud of spray, while around me traditional craft of all shapes and sizes dipped across the waves under the clear Breton sky - barques and schooners, brigantines and brigs, yawls and cutters, barges and fishing boats, training ships and little dinghies - their crews gazing around them in awe at the dramatic spectacle of which they were a part.

On the third day of the fete I came across Alan Glanville, another DCA member, slicing across the Rade in his beautiful Ness Yawl - improbably named Lowly Worm III. Later, over moules and frites in a quayside cafe, I told him of my plan to sail up the River Aulne for a night away from the festival. Alan had barely finished building his boat, let alone organised a camping cover, but he was keen to try her on a proper voyage.

The Bastille Day revelry and impromptu quayside bonfires did not die down until about 5 am, so were up late the next day, and it was nearly lunch-time before Baggywrinkle and Lowly Worm III slipped away from their moorings in Basin II of the Port de Commerce. The outer harbour was packed with vessels showing off and 'doing it under sail', but we ducked round the plunging bowsprits of the big stuff and dived out into the clearer waters of the Rade, to fly away south across its glistening waters. In contrast to the bustle and noise of Brest, the River Aulne was as empty as it was peaceful. It was evening by the time we got to the river, and the wind became fickle between its high wooded banks, but we carried the last of the flood under the impressive suspension span of the Pont de Térénez and round the bend beyond to the little village of Trégarvan.

We dried out on the beach and cooked our meal, looking out across the river in the evening sun. Alan was delighted to find that dinghy cruising lived up to his dreams. I warned him that it wasn't always like this. I told him about the cold, the wet and the cramp - but he was far gone, and dismissed my words with the confident grin of the newly converted. Perhaps I would have persuaded him in the end, but just as we were polishing off the last of our bottle of wine, a chap wandered down and asked if we would like to go back to his house for evening drinks. Alan gave me a triumphant smile and assured him that we would be along directly.

That night Alan slept in the open on the bottom boards of his boat, but the heavy dew did not dampen his ardour. He was up early, chivvying me up to catch the ebb. Admittedly it was a beautiful morning. The sun slanted through the mist and golden rays rippled across the water. We set off at once, skimping on breakfast to catch the tide. A pleasant couple of hours sailing brought us to Landévennec - a pretty Breton village on a rocky promontory overlooking the mouth of the Aulne - and here we stopped for coffee and croissants in a little cafe.

After another snorter of a sail across the Rade, we slid back into Basin II and moored alongside Frejala. Fred and Angela were eating crevettes again and discussing their plans for the morrow. The forecast was for an easterly of between force 4 and force 6, so the Winstanleys had decided to trail their boat to Douarnenez by road. I wanted to give the coastal passage a try, but I was in a minority of one. Alan agreed with the Winstanleys. "You don't have to prove anything, you know," Fred observed with fatherly concern.

The next morning I was woken up by the wind in the rigging of the surrounding vessels. Around me large craft were preparing for the sea, and it all felt very solemn. All the other little boats had gone from Basin 11, hauled out and bound to Douarnenez on their trailers. The passage to Douarnenez was 26 miles along a rocky coast, completely exposed to the Atlantic. I wondered if I had made the right decision.

The passage race to Douarnenez was timed to leave Brest at 1000, but I had decided to get away ahead of the crowd, so I was out in the Rade just after 0900 hours, bound for the narrow entrance of the estuary. The wind was no more than a F3, but everything was securely lashed down against the promise of higher winds later in the day.

In the Goulet I was joined by the French three masted barque Belem. She slowly made sail, barely ten yards away from me. First her upper and lower topsails were unfurled, then the topgallants and royals, and finally her courses. Belem must be the prettiest big square rigger afloat today. Her painted ports set off the lovely lines of her black hull, and she has a perfectly proportioned rig. It is embarrassing that the French have something as delightful as this, while we have the lumbering Lord Nelson. I kept pace with Belem all the way through the Goulet, but then our courses diverged. She sailed straight on out into the Atlantic, to avoid the shoal waters off the Pointe de Toulinguet, while I cut to the southwest across Camaret Bay.

Just beyond the spectacular passage between the rock stacks of the Tas de Pois, I hove to so I could watch the fleet bearing down on me, sail beyond sail, crowding through the narrow channel. The big French fishing luggers had already overhauled even the faster yachts, and were pounding towards me, lug sails and lug topsails straining on their masts. A Baltimore Clipper stormed past with studding sails set on her raking foremast. Two men were rolling along in a 14 foot Ilur, her single lugsail boomed out with an oar. "Votre bateau est très beau!" they called out as they passed me. By now my earlier worries were replaced by an intense gratitude that - of all the places I could have chosen to be that day - I was here, amongst this great stream of beautiful vessels.

On we sailed, under the cliffs of the Crozon peninsula and round the Cap de la Chevre into the wide bay of Douarnenez. At last the wind began to fail us. I lowered the sails and started to row. Then I recognised a vessel from the Bristol boat festival in May - Alexia Jenkins's lovely 21 foot Harrison Butler Susanna II - ghosting past the larger yachts in her inimitable way.

"If the wind doesn't buck up we're thinking of turning on the engine," Alexia called: "Fancy a tow?"

How could I refuse her? Presently Baggywrinkle was sluicing through the waves on the end of a tow rope, with the helm lashed. It had been an exciting morning and I was worn out. I lay in the bottom boards and pulled my canvas hat down over my eyes to keep out the sun. Soon I had fallen fast asleep.

I awoke two hours later to find that the wind had risen to a respectable F3, Susanna had begun to motorsail and my bare ankles were sun burnt. Baggy was snatching at the tow rope, so I thanked Alexia, dropped the tow and tacked the remaining few miles to Douarnenez on my own.

At 1830 Baggy glided gently into the old harbour at Douarnenez and came alongside the bosomy black topsides of the Galway hooker Star of the West. A red haired crewman reached down and handed me a chilled can of Guinness. Clearly I had come to the right place for some good craic.

For the owner of a traditional boat, to enter Douarnenez is to come home. It is a delightful town by anyone’s standards, but to sailors Douarnenez has an extra importance as the birthplace of the French traditional boat revival, and we follow the varying fortunes of its crumbling quays and cobbled streets with concern and affection. So although the Douarnenez festival was smaller and less spectacular than the one at Brest, it was more convivial, for here we were among friends.

I spent the following day wandering the streets and pottering up and down the river under oars, but then I was eager for another voyage. I had been in France for a week, and a body can only put up with so much partying, even in a wonderful place like Douarnenez.

My goal was the remote island of Sein, five miles off the tip of the French mainland and 20 sea miles from Douarnenez. Alan wanted to come too, but then he bumped into some friends who wanted to be taken for a jaunt round the harbour, so in the end I sailed off westward on my own - until the town of Douarnenez was just a speck in the distance, and the sea was empty again.

Four hours after we left Douarnenez the Cap de la Chevre finally started to bear abaft the beam, but by this time Baggywrinkle was only dribbling along in the light air. It was a further five hours before we cleared the Pointe du Van, and at long last I could look down through the Raz de Sein into the Bay of Biscay. But was now 8.10 pm and darkness was falling. The Ile de Sein was still only a thin line on the western horizon and I had been rowing for the past hour. Shortly the south going tide would set in, accelerating rapidly to four or five knots, so it did not seem the ideal time to row five miles out into the Atlantic for the distant island. Regretfully I rowed south round the point into the wide bay between the Pointe du Van and the Pointe du Raz, to look for somewhere sheltered to anchor for the night.

Even in the dusk of a warm summer's evening the Raz de Sein is a dramatic and portentous place. Huge cliffs fall sheer into the sea, light houses rise from rocks, and the name of the bay I was rowing into, the Baie des Trepasses, translates as the Bay of Corpses.

Cut into the cliffs of the bay was a gloomy semi circular rock cove. A few small fishing boats lay at moorings in the centre. On the shore a steep stone slipway sliced up the rock to a shallow ledge on which there was a large manual winch, and from there a narrow path wound up to the top of the cliff. My map marked a village beyond the cliff edge, and the thought of bars and telephones tempted me to try a landing, but a six foot ground swell was welling up the slipway and pouring off in streams of white foam. There would be no going ashore that night.

I slept in the open without the cover, as the bay was open to the south west and I was worried about a shift in the wind. All night the swell roared in my ears against the rocks. I had to be off as soon as it was light, before the south going tide would prevent my return around the Pointe du Van. Unfortunately the morning brought another flat calm, and although I rowed hard for two hours, I was unable to make it round the point in time. I struggled in the overfalls for a while, but I could make nothing against the strengthening tide. Finally I abandoned the attempt and returned to the cove, passing a little French fishing boat in which three men were at work laying pots under the cliffs.

Back on the mooring I calculated that the tide would not turn in my favour again until the early afternoon, so I made some coffee and settled down in the bottom boards to wait. About half an hour later the little fishing boat came motoring into the bay and picked up a nearby buoy. One of the crew rowed over in their tender to ask if I would like to join them for "la Liqueur Anglaise", whatever that was. When I joined them in their boat, they brought out a large bottle of Scotch and poured four generous glasses. By the time we were on our second glasses we were firm friends. They asked if I needed anything. I said that I had run out of bread, as I had hoped to get to a boulangerie, so they rooted around in a locker and thrust a loaf into my hands, assuring me that it was fresh that morning. A bunch of bananas followed as well as biscuits and a bottle of wine. Then we drank some more Scotch.

Just when I was beginning to wonder whether I would be in a fit state to sail 18 miles back to Douarnenez, we noticed that a large French catamaran was getting under way. One of the fishermen rowed off to ask if it was going north. He returned with the news that they were bound for Douarnenez, and they would tow me as far as I wanted. I dictated a message for the fishermen to ring through to the Crew Centre, to tell my various friends not to worry, and set off out of the bay on the expansive deck of the catamaran.

The catamaran's engine powered us round the Pointe du Van into the teeth of the tide, but once we were round the point into the bay of Douarnenez, her crew started to look for somewhere to anchor "while the tide slackens". I was perplexed. The tides in the bay barely exceed a knot, and we had already breasted worse than that. Once we had anchored the true motive became clear however - it was lunch time. A table was laid, bottles of liqueur and wine were opened, and soon a huge repast was being put together in the galley. I had never liked catamarans, but they were beginning to grow on me.

Baggywrinkle finally arrived back in Douarnenez at nine o'clock that evening. I had dropped my tow four miles off the little port, so she arrived under sail like a proper ship, not a salvaged hulk under tow. I was looking forward to telling my friends of my adventures, but when I rounded the breakwater I found that there were noticeably fewer vessels in the old harbour. Clearly many people had already left to return home. Alan was gone, Alexia was gone, and most of the other boats I had been rafted up to the day before had also vanished, including Frejala. My friend Richard Lindsay was still there in his Longshore 16 however, and we went out for a last night's supper in a nearby restaurant, to dispel the gentle melancholia that always sets in towards the end of a holiday.

But before we walked up into the town, we went to the Crew Centre to check if my message had got through. It had, after a fashion. Stuck up on the crew notice board was a dogeared note:

"Message pour le Lovely Worms III, - Mr Roger Barnes sur Baggy-wrinkle en remorquage vers Douarnenez pas de probleme."

NB: 3 photos excluded – do not particularly add to article

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