Fécamp Grand’Escale

Fécamp Grand'Escale 2024: An international maritime event in Normandy celebrating maritime cultures. A great popular festival in the monumental natural setting of the “Pays des Hautes Falaises”.

All traditional and classic boats, large and small, are welcome. A special place will be reserved for boats built in Fécamp, but the festival also invites the most beautiful sailing ships of European heritage.

Let's imagine: "... Marie Fernand and Jolie Brise, the pilot cutters from Le Havre, are going to round a buoy anchored under the cliffs of Etretat and control with difficulty the Bristol pilots and some big Essex smacks. Tomorrow it will be the turn of the big schooners to race on the same course along the cliffs. On the shore in front of Yport, a small flotilla of sail and oar boats is waiting for the current to turn around and come back to Fécamp...

The Brixham trawlers are alongside the Baltic galeases in the Freycinet basin and the herring ketches from the Netherlands are visiting the Berigny basin. Over the roofs of the hangars, one can see the powerful masts of the tall ships that occupy the entire Joseph Duhamel quay in the inner harbour and, further east, the Verdun quay. In the access channel to the port, dories, faerings, oselvars and other Ness yawls parade in line. In the marina one can see the gleaming hulls of a dozen "vintage" motorboats and small gaff rigged yachts.... "