The first thing I cooked at anchor in France was a disaster. A cheap kettle barbecue clamped to the pushpit, a gust off the headland, and most of our sausages went over the side at Houat. The gulls were thrilled. We were not. Three seasons later I have a setup that works, and the lesson behind every choice is the same: a boat is not a back garden, and the kit has to cope with heel, salt, and a 15-knot afternoon breeze that arrives the moment the coals are hot.
Here is what I now carry, why, and the bits that French waters add to the usual barbecue question.
The grill itself: rail-mount, gas, and small
I went through three barbecues before settling. A round charcoal kettle balanced on the cockpit sole was the worst idea I have ever had afloat. Charcoal is messy, slow, throws sparks downwind onto a cockpit tent, and you cannot put it out fast if a squall comes through. On a boat, gas wins for one reason above all others: you can turn it off instantly.
The grill that earns its locker space is a stainless rail-mount gas barbecue, the cylindrical kind that bolts to a stanchion or pushpit rail and swings outboard so any drips and flare-ups go over the water. The popular Magma and Cobb-style units run between roughly 150 and 350 euros depending on size and material. Buy stainless, not chromed steel, because anything less than 316-grade marine stainless will bleed rust streaks down your topsides by the second season.
Size matters more than you think. A 380mm grill feeds four hungry adults; go bigger only if you genuinely cook for six or more, because a large barbecue is a large windage problem and a large thing to stow. Mine lives in a padded bag in the cockpit locker and the mount stays on the rail all summer.
Gas: the French bottle problem
This is the part nobody warns visiting boats about. Your home gas bottle fitting almost certainly does not match the French system, and you cannot simply swap a UK Calor or a Dutch bottle at a French supermarket. The brands are not interchangeable: a bottle exchanges only at a sales point of the same brand.
For a barbecue you have two sensible routes. The first is small disposable cartridges, the Campingaz pierceable or screw-fit type, which any French supermarket and chandler stocks for a few euros. Easy, but wasteful and pricey over a season. The second, if you stay weeks or months, is a small French refillable bottle. The Butagaz Le Cube runs about 24 euros for a refill once you have paid the roughly 39-euro deposit, and the Primagaz Twiny butane is around 23 euros to refill on a 29-euro deposit. Carry an adaptor hose so the same bottle can feed the barbecue and, if the fittings allow, your galley.
One safety point that France takes seriously: gas lockers on boats must drain overboard, not into the bilge. If you are buying or chartering, our notes on what the carrying your boat documents inspectors look at include gas installation, and a non-compliant setup is the sort of thing the Gendarmerie Maritime will mention.
Lighting it without losing it
Wind is the enemy. A piezo igniter built into the barbecue is far better than a lighter you fumble while bracing against a swell. I keep a long-nose gas lighter as backup, in a dry bag, because the built-in spark dies the day you need it.
Cook before the evening breeze, not during it. On the Atlantic coast the sea breeze typically builds through the afternoon and drops near sunset, so an early supper at anchor is often the calmest window. In the Mediterranean the same logic applies but watch for the offshore katabatic flow that can come down a valley after dark.
Fire rules and where you actually cannot cook
France has no blanket ban on cooking aboard at anchor, but the surrounding fire regulations bite. During high-risk summer periods, many Mediterranean and Corsican prefectures issue total open-flame bans ashore, and landing your barbecue on a beach or rock to cook is a fast way to a fine. A 2025 summer that pushed Mediterranean sea-surface temperatures to a record 26-degree average came with weeks of extreme wildfire alerts, and the rules tighten in those conditions.
The practical rule I follow: cook on the boat, over the water, never ashore in summer, and never on a beach in a fire-alert department. If you want a beach meal, bring it cold. This dovetails with the wider scuba diving france certification crowd's habit of treating the coast as a protected place, not a campsite.
The supporting kit that makes it work
A barbecue is only half the system. The rest is what stops the meal becoming a chore.
- Long-handled stainless tongs and a fish slice, on a lanyard, so a lurch does not send them overboard.
- A folding wind shield or a simple piece of marine ply you can wedge to windward.
- A heatproof silicone mat to set the hot grill on while it cools, because a hot grill on a teak cockpit seat leaves a scar.
- A spray bottle of fresh water, both for flare-ups and for the inevitable burning-fat moment.
- Heavy-duty foil and a couple of disposable trays, which turn the grill into an oven for fish and reduce the scrub-down afterwards.
- A stiff brass brush and a bottle of degreaser, because salt air plus grease equals a seized hinge by August.
Provisioning around a barbecue is a pleasure in France. The morning market run for fresh sardines, a daurade off the fish stall, merguez from the butcher, and you have three nights of suppers sorted. Tie the cooking into your shopping rhythm rather than treating it as a separate chore, and pair it with sensible boat refrigeration france so the catch survives the trip back to the anchorage.
Cooking beyond the grill
A barbecue is one tool, not the whole galley afloat, and the boats that eat best at anchor carry a couple of others that earn their stowage. A small single-burner gas stove, the camping kind that runs off the same cartridges as a backup, lets you boil water for coffee or pasta in the cockpit without lighting the main galley on a hot day, and it doubles as your fallback if the boat's gas runs out. A cast-iron griddle plate that sits over the grill bars turns the barbecue into a frying surface for eggs, scallops and the small fish that fall through open grates, and it holds heat far better than the thin steel of a cheap grill.
The thing I underrated for years was the clear-up. Cooking over the water sounds clean until you are scrubbing congealed fat off a grill in a swell with a bucket of cold seawater. Cook fish in a foil parcel or on the griddle, line drip trays with foil, and do the rough scrub while the grill is still warm and the fat is still soft. A grill left dirty overnight in salt air is a grill you will fight with for an hour the next day, and a seized hinge by August is the usual punishment for skipping the wipe-down.
What I would buy if starting again
If I were kitting out a 10-metre cruising boat from scratch for a French summer, I would spend the money on a 316-stainless rail-mount gas grill in the 380mm size, around 250 euros, fit it to a dedicated stainless rail mount, and carry one small French refillable bottle plus a couple of disposable cartridges as backup. Total outlay somewhere near 350 to 400 euros including mounts and consumables, and it lasts years.
The cheap kettle that lost my sausages at Houat cost 30 euros and one good dinner. The proper setup cost ten times that and has paid me back in calm evenings at anchor more times than I can count. Cooking ashore is romantic until a fire warden moves you on; cooking over the water, with the right gear, is one of the genuine joys of a French cruise. Get the gas sorted first, the grill second, and the wind shield before you think you need it.
