Celebrating Traditional Boats

Glorious Brest: the world’s largest maritime festival in photographs

by Nigel Pert & Dan Houston with a foreword by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

This book will appeal to anyone who likes old boats and maritime traditions. It covers three decades of the largest maritime festival in the world, where around 10,000 sailors bring 2,000 vessels to a crowd that can reach a million, every four years at the port of Brest, in French Brittany.

The boats are of all sizes from Tall Ships to small ships – some people even sail there in their dinghy! In between are the old sailing trawlers, the tunnymen and oyster smacks, pilot cutters, brown-sailed barges, salmon punts, steam launches and a host of other traditional vessels that create contemporary vistas from the old age of sail.

It’s all been photographed and collated by Nigel Pert – a photographic artist whose love of the lines of these old boat designs leaps off the pages of this book. Having photographed every festival, often as an official photographer, he’s selected from his rich archive of not just the boats but also the people, and sailors, sailing and showing off their ships. He captures the myriad of events, craft displays, music, food, the night-time fireworks and the atmosphere of the quayside cafés all in a gorgeously produced book that takes you into the heart of this special event.

The photographs are complemented with some in-depth and observant details by Dan Houston. With more than 200 photographs, many over full frame across its 100 pages this book is a fabulous feast for the eyes for anyone who loves old boats and the old sea ways – which have been coming together at the Brest festival since 1992.