Tunny fishing aboard the Petite Marie Claude from Douarnenez.

 Tunny boats on landing day in Douarnenez......

Robert George holding his first tuna of the trip caught by line and pole ........

Looking every inch the movie star, skipper Xavier Quennec.

In the summer of 1967, Robert George (ex-skipper of the top Newlyn seiner Dew-Genen-Ny) filmed his voyage aboard a pole and line tuna boat from Douarnenez in Brittany. The boat, Petite Marie Claude DZ185081, was built in 1959 by Chantier Naval, Douarnenez for skipper by Xavier Quennec.

More information provided by Alain Gourett:

The boat Petite Marie Claude was a wooden hulled vessel built in 1954

The owner called Xavier QUEINNEC
Registration: DZ3886 then DZ 185081
Length 16.78 m
Beam 5.62 m
Draught (Draughts) 2.80 m
Gross tonnage  48.15 tx
Speed 7 kts
Engine: 128 hp / engine MAN

Robert used 8mm cine film which was subsequently converted to digital by 3S Films in Penzance.

•  Tunny fishing part I.

• Tunny fishing part I.

• Tunny fishing part III.

• Tunny fishing part IV.  Look out for a fully laden 'Langoustier' - an example of the huge wooden pot boats that fished thousands of miles from Douarnenez as far as Mauritania and filled their vivier tanks with crayfish or langouste. The last of these boats sailed from Douarnenez in the early 1980s with a few surviving examples still to be sen at the Musée de Pêche.