A dead engine a mile off a French harbour entrance is a peculiar kind of stress. You can see the breakwater, you can almost smell the moules-frites, and you cannot get there. The wind is on the nose, the tide is setting you down the coast, and the choice in front of you is whether to sail in, anchor and think, or take a tow. Getting that last decision right, and rigging the tow properly when you do, is the difference between a non-event and a bent stanchion, a salvage claim, or a boat on the rocks at the harbour mouth.
I have towed two boats into French ports and been towed into one, and the part that goes wrong is never the towing itself. It is the approach, the handover at the entrance, and occasionally the bill that arrives afterwards.
Towage or salvage: settle it before the line goes across
This is the single thing visiting sailors get caught by, so it comes first. Under maritime law there is a hard line between towage, a service rendered at an agreed rate, and salvage, where a vessel in genuine peril is saved and the salvor can claim a reward proportionate to the value of what they saved. A boat being helpfully towed off a sandbank by a passing fisherman can, if nobody agrees terms, become the subject of a salvage claim worth a slice of the boat's value.
The fix is simple and you do it before any rope is passed. Establish out loud, ideally on a recorded VHF channel, that this is an agreed tow, that your vessel is not in danger of being lost, and what is expected. If money is involved, agree the basis. If it is the volunteer lifeboat, the rules are different again and usually involve a contribution rather than a commercial fee. The whole legal landscape is laid out in the guide to towing and being towed in France, and it is worth reading on a quiet evening rather than working out at sea while a fishing boat circles you impatiently.
Who tows you, and what it costs
Your options when the engine dies off France, roughly in order of who you should call:
- Another yacht or a passing fishing boat. Free or for a drink, usually, but get the towage-not-salvage agreement clear and accept that an amateur tow into a tricky port can do more harm than good.
- A commercial tow or assistance service. In busier areas there are firms that will come out for a fee, often quoted by distance and conditions.
- The SNSM, the volunteer sea-rescue service. They will come if you are in difficulty, and assistance to a boat that is not in danger of life typically attracts a financial participation toward their running costs rather than a profit-making fee. The SNSM is a serious national resource, around 4,500 trained volunteer crew across 205 stations, who rescued over 11,000 people in 2024, so they are not to be summoned for a flat battery you could sort yourself. The detail on calling the lifeboat in France and the SNSM cost explains where the line sits and what you can expect to pay.
Reaching them is straightforward once you know the channels. France keeps watch on VHF 16 and DSC 70 through the CROSS centres, and you can also reach sea rescue on 196 from a phone. If you are unsure who is listening on which channel along your stretch of coast, the guide to contacting the French coastguard on VHF sorts it out.
Rigging the tow so nothing breaks
The loads in a tow are brutal and they snatch. The number that focuses the mind: a 25mm bore failure floods a hull at 129 litres a minute, and a parted tow line under load can hit you across the cockpit at a speed that does similar damage to a body. Treat the rigging seriously.
- Take the strain on something strong. A bridle from both primary cleats or a strongpoint, never a single weak cleat. If you doubt a cleat, you are right to.
- Use stretch. Nylon, your warps or your anchor snubber, soaks up the snatch. A static line will rip fittings out on the first surge.
- Keep it long, especially in any swell, so the two boats are never in step and pulling against each other. A long catenary smooths the load enormously.
- Lead it through a fairlead and protect against chafe. The line will saw through itself at any sharp edge in minutes under that load.
- Brief a crew member to stand by with a knife. If it all goes wrong, you cut and start again, you do not stand in the bight of a loaded line.
The general principles of load, bridle and chafe are the same whether you are giving or taking the tow, and the towing and being towed in France piece goes into the rope sizes and bridle geometry in more depth.
The hard part: the harbour entrance
Towing across open water is the easy 90% of the job. The entrance is the dangerous 10%. A tow has poor steering, no brakes, and a long line that does not like tight turns or shallow water.
Most French ports want to be involved in this. Call the capitainerie on the working channel before you arrive, tell them you are coming in under tow, give your length, beam and draught, and ask where they want you. They may send a port launch, clear a reception berth, or hold other traffic. Town marinas from the Channel to the Riviera are used to this and would far rather guide you in than watch you improvise.
The handover near the entrance is the moment to plan. Options, depending on the harbour:
- Shorten the tow right down for the final approach so the towed boat is just astern and under close control. This needs flat water and careful speed.
- Bring the towed boat alongside the towing vessel, lashed bow and stern, so the towing boat steers both as one unit. This is by far the most controllable way into a marina berth and is how most successful tows actually finish.
- Drop the tow outside, anchor or hold off, and let a port launch take you the last few metres.
Whatever you choose, go slow. A tow has momentum and no reverse worth the name, and the breakwater does not move. Better to stop short, sort the lashing, and creep in than to carry way into a stone wall.
When a tow is the wrong answer
Sometimes the right call is not to be towed at all. If you can sail, sailing into or near a port and anchoring to wait for slack water, a fair wind or daylight is often safer than a tow into a difficult entrance. If you are genuinely in danger, on a lee shore with the boat at risk, then it stops being a tow decision and becomes a rescue, and you make the call accordingly. The grounding-and-stranding side of that, what to do when the boat is being set down onto something hard, is its own subject in running aground in France.
A tow into a French port is one of those jobs that is 95% preparation and judgement and 5% rope. Settle the salvage question before the line goes across, rig for the loads, talk to the capitainerie early, and slow everything right down at the entrance. Do that and the worst breakdown of your season becomes a short detour and a story, not a claim and a repair bill.
