Dear Friends,
We have been coming to Villefranche-sur-mer in the winter since 2014. The Rade de Villefranche (the bay) is the only well protected deep water harbor on the northern coast of the Mediterranean. I love looking at the water, the boats and all the comings and goings. The apartment that we rent is right on the water, but we are quite a bit above water level. Even in January and February there are quite a few boats in the bay and lots of activity. Here is a picture of the bay from January 2020.
All these photos are taken from the balcony of our apartment. You can understand why I like it here. Here is a photo of the bay from early this year.
As you can see, there are still quite a few boats in the bay, many of them have been here for years. On Monday, all of the boats were removed from the bay either under their own power or by the various maritime police groups. Here is what that the bay looked like Monday afternoon.
I don't know why the authorities decided to clear the bay out. I have always thought that there were a number of boats that were abandoned. There were other boats with people living on them but that could never move under their own power. There were other boats that were occupied by people who were living on them and fixing them up or at least keeping them in good condition. I am quite sure that many of them were in violation of any number of regulations, including not paying whatever the fee is for anchoring in the bay.
Regardless of the reason, on Monday morning early a group of six or seven maritime police vessels arrived and began a massive operation to clear the bay.
They brought with them a couple of private contractors to help with the operation. In the photo below, the top circle is a maritime police boat and the two bottom circles contain the private contractors. It is not hard to tell the difference. You probably cannot tell from the picture that the cover on the private contractor's boat on the bottom left is covered with sea gull poop.
The operation was very efficiently done. Seven boats were towed to a near by anchorage while they await being taken out of the water and put in a junk yard with the other three boats that have already been sent there. In the photos below, they are towing boats away. It was quite easy, they had big chain cutters and just cut the anchor rodes.
They also made quick work of taking several boats out using a flat bed truck with a crane. They don't bother spending any time carefully unrigging to take the mast down. They just attach the mast to the crane and cut all the stays. In the photo below the mast has just crashed into the water.
They also don't have to spend any time worrying about marring the hull, so they just lay the boat on its side on the truck bed.
They got quite efficient at taking the boats out this way. In the photo below they have just put one the truck and had two others waiting to go.
At the end of the operation, there were still several boats left. According to a Facebook post by Villefranche, the larger boats here will be taken away over the next week. I don't know what will happen to the dinghies, some of which are completely disgusting. One of the sail boats has a for sale sign on it. It has solar panels and is fairly well maintained and can move on its own power. The owner is on board. I don't know how long he will be permitted to stay.
A couple days later on a walk, I found many of the boats that had been removed. The first photo is of the boats that were moved and awaiting haul out. The second photo is the boats already in the junk yard.
There were also a number of boats whose owners were on board. They were told to leave. In the photo below the double masted sailboat is being sent off by the authorities. It was sad. It is a nice boat, it has been in the bay for several years, and the owner has been working on it diligently.
According to a Villefranche Facebook post, the operation removed all the boats that were illegally in the bay. Apparently, all the boats in the bay were illegal in some way, hence the now empty bay. That Facebook post also indicated that next week the authorities would start a cleaning of the bottom of the bay. I am sure that there are many things on the bottom that will be of interest. Plus after Monday's operation there are a bunch of anchors and anchor rodes. I am looking forward to seeing how they clean the bottom. It may be like watching submarine races. I will let you know.
I worry about the Rade de Villefranche. It appears empty and lacks much of its former character. I hope that the authorities have not ruined one of the many reasons that I love Villefranche just in the hopes of gaining more revenue or upgrading the boats that come to the bay. We will see. I will keep you posted.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
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