A few words written by hand and pasted on the window convey the emotion felt by the managers of the Quatre vents fishmonger in Courseulles-sur-Mer (Calvados), this Friday, January 15: “A great misfortune has happened to us.
We are temporarily closed.
See you soon.
"Beside the message, a permanent inscription praises the origins of the products of the shop:" Direct arrival from our boat ".
A drawing of the Breiz sits just above.
But the trawler is no more.
She sank the night before, taking with her three young sailors.
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"When I made the connection with the fishmonger, it gave me a big shock", slips a passerby in the rue de la Mer. This shop is an institution in the city center.
He owned the Breiz for a long time, which many locals remember very well.
The ship had just set sail for the English Channel, says Vincent, in the midst of peeling scallops on the port stalls: “The boat belonged to the fishmonger, who put it up for sale a while ago.
When there was a buyer, the ship left for Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue (Manche).
It's recent, because there are still two months, he was in the basin at Courseulles.
"
The 11.21 meter trawler continued to supply the Four Winds.
The tragedy shakes the city, as Anne-Marie Philippeaux, mayor of the municipality confirms: “For people, the Breiz is a boat from Courseulles.
And the fishmonger is the same, it is part of the city.
It is all the attachment that the Courseullais can have for their fishermen.
The city councilor confides his "immense sadness" for the victims, originally from the Channel and very little known on the Calvados docks.
“The Channel is very dangerous.
We don't realize ”
Anne-Marie Philippeaux spoke briefly by telephone with the manager of the former owner of the old trawler (launched in 1979).
The shock is all the more severe as the unfolding of the fatal evening initially suggested a positive outcome, since the fishing boat was towed when it capsized.
In the streets, two long-time locals discuss: “When they talk about damage, what is it?
A mechanical glitch?
Apparently it was during towing, a wave passed over it and it sank.
"
The circumstances became clearer over the day.
Victim of a damaged helm, already slapped by very rough seas, the boat overturned "in thirty seconds, perhaps a minute", in the words of Philippe Capdeville, owner of the SNSM all-weather dinghy in Ouistreham, which provided towing.
The occupants, aged 19, 26 and 27, were stranded in the cabin.
In Courseulles, Michel recalls “that the Channel is very dangerous.
We don't realize.
These people have a very difficult job.
"
"Solidarity will accompany the fishmongers"
Near the fishmonger, Nicole, a neighbor, confides that the managers "always feared an accident like that, and it happened".
The small fishing port is stunned, Mayor Anne-Marie Philippeaux assures us that “solidarity will accompany the fishmongers”.
Along the channel, the memory of Breiz was in any case tinged with sadness, painfully shared further north, at Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue, from where the trawler had set off, in search of shells, without never come back.