Sports meetings for sailors: in Rouen, all the guys in the world meet on a sports field
Europe’s leading port for loading grain, the port of Rouen welcomes dozens of ships from all over the world every week. Since 1989, it has also received the largest sailing ships on the planet and millions of visitors on the occasion of L’Armada, the next edition of which will take place in 2023. But who says ships, necessarily says sailors.
Thus, since 1976, once a year, the Maritime & Port Sports Association (ASMP) has organized sporting meetings between landowners and sailors. After two years of scarcity due to the health crisis, all the guys in the world met at the Robespierre room in Petit-Quevilly (near Rouen) for the 42nd sailors’ sports meetings, from May 30 to June 1.
Since 1946, the AGISM (Association for the management of maritime social institutions) has taken care of the reception of sailors during their stopovers in Rouen thanks to the sailors’ home and the seafarers’ hotel. Between 1976 and 2016 , it also organized sports days taken over after its dissolution by ASMP volunteers. Thus, each year, for three evenings from 6.30 p.m. to 9 p.m., the “sailors” of the ships calling and the “land people” of the port – players in the port economy, ship agents, shipping agents, freight forwarders, customs officials or handling agents – “come to meet at basketball, futsal, volleyball, table tennis, archery and, new this year, Frisbee matches. These are not competitions, but sharing a good time so that the sailors remember their stopover in Rouen otherwise most of them would never disembark,” explained President Yves Michel.
To welcome them, upstream, they are informed by the pilot who guides the ship from the estuary to the port, then by the port officer and finally at the sailors’ home for those who go there. Registered sailors or officers are then picked up by volunteers at the bottom of the vehicle walkways to the gymnasium. Supported by Haropa Ports and a good dozen other sponsors, the ASMP offered all the participants and in particular those who represent the open sea, cups and prizes. Lots of souvenirs from Normandy.