Le Figaro Nice
Villefranche-sur-Mer is not its first stranded boat.
Dozens of boats drift each year and for some, sink in the harbor and its shades of blue.
Blame it on powerful swells. The town hall, in collaboration with the Departmental Directorate of Territories and the Sea (DDTM) of the Alpes-Maritimes, works daily to avoid these situations.
But since the end of September, the grounding of a sailboat has been embarrassing, until, this time, causing an administrative imbroglio between the municipality and the DDTM, a branch of the prefecture.
More than three months after being grounded, the wreck of the "Tipailenqueue" has still not been removed.
Worse, the latter is breaking up and could, in the long term, threaten the harbour.
This annoys the mayor, Christophe Trojani (Les Républicains).
“I believe that the State is looking for false pretexts to justify its inability to act and this is becoming a problem
, regrets the city councilor, who says he is
“impatient and annoyed”.
Abandoned sailboat
The boat, which was not insured (which is not an obligation, except when the ports impose it, editor's note), ran aground on the night of September 28, following stormy conditions.
Since then, this sixteen-meter keelboat has been abandoned by its owner.
The latter, who no longer has the resources to deal with it, did not respond to the various formal notices.
"This place is a surf spot, it's like Hawaii with a particular background
," explains Arnaud Fredefon, head of the DDTM's maritime service.
The waves rode it up, we had bad luck.
50 meters more to the left or more to the right, we would have had no problem getting it out.
If it had washed up on a beach, the town hall would have taken responsibility for it.
But the ghost ship is in the bay of Grasseuil, against the villa "Cansoun del Mar" that a Russian engineer had offered himself.
The competence for its withdrawal therefore falls to the DDTM, and no longer to the municipality.
Since the end of September, the procedure has dragged on.
According to the state agency, the location of the boat makes its removal complex and very expensive.
Companies solicited by the DDTM first tried to remove it, in vain.
In December, a feasibility study was initiated.
“It emerges from discussions with professionals that the only solution is to cut it on the spot
,” explains Arnaud Fredefon.
The deconstruction work on site will be complicated and will cost a lot of public expenditure.
You have to negotiate a budget.
The cost of the site would be between 50,000 and 100,000 euros,
"without having the certainty of being able to completely remove it"
, adds the maritime chief.
The file could go back to the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
Two Versions
"They're playing for time!"
, gets annoyed on his side Christophe Trojani.
The city councilor sees behind the new analyzes of the hull to ensure that there is no asbestos a new pretext and swears not to be able to intervene.
A position contested by the DDTM:
“If he judges that the boat is deteriorating and endangers his municipality, he can act if he warns us.
Obviously, in view of its stakes, the municipality had no interest in acting.
The mayor is choking on this version:
“If tomorrow the DDTM authorizes us to remove the boat, in the week it is no longer sullying the harbor of Villefranche-sur-Mer!
, he exclaims.
This is the first time that we find ourselves in such a situation.
I am really disappointed."
According to him, the maneuver to remove the sailboat, whose hull has meanwhile broken, would not be so difficult.
“The company TP Spada is quite capable of carrying out such an operation,”
he says.
But the DDTM and Arnaud Fredefon maintain:
"We have to invent a fairly new technical solution."
Pass by the villa for example?
If the mayor considers this solution possible, the DDTM on the other hand considers it not feasible.
If tomorrow the DDTM authorizes us to remove the boat, in the week it is no longer sullying the harbor of Villefranche-sur-Mer!
Christophe Trojani, mayor of Villefranche-sur-Mer
While the two entities have been doing everything for several years to avoid abandoned boats and this type of situation, Arnaud Fredefon recalls that mooring operations have been tightened.
“This case becomes emblematic of what we no longer want
, he swears.
We hope it's the last one, but it's the biggest and most complicated.
It's the irony of history."
