From the atelier where oak planks are fitted by hand, to the kitchen tables where retired bateliers share their memories, our work takes many forms — all in service of a single inheritance.
The practical core of our work is the restoration of traditional Gironde watercraft — the gabarres, pinasses, chaloupes, and work-boats that carried wine, oysters, timber, and people across the estuary and its tributaries for generations. Restoration is never simply cosmetic: we research each vessel's provenance thoroughly before beginning work, consulting naval architects' drawings held at the Musée Maritime de Bordeaux and the Musée de la Marine, cross-referencing with old photographs, and interviewing any surviving mariners who worked the same type of hull.
The result is a restoration record that documents not only what we did but why, making each completed vessel a permanent research resource as well as a living exhibit. Beyond the atelier, our work extends into the community in ways that reflect our conviction that heritage only survives if it is shared. Our archiving team works year-round to record, catalogue, and digitise testimonies and documents before they are lost. Our education volunteers spend hundreds of hours each year in Pessac classrooms and at our workshop, helping young people understand that the estuary visible from the quais of Bordeaux was not always a backdrop for leisure but a working waterway that shaped the economy of an entire region. And our annual estuary day provides a moment each year at which the full span of our work — restored vessels, recorded memories, educated young people — comes together in a celebration that is open to everyone.
Each completed vessel is a permanent research resource as well as a living exhibit — proof that rigorous scholarship and hands-on craft are not opposites, but partners.
Atelier de Restauration, Section de PessacHands-on restoration of traditional Gironde vessels using period-correct materials and techniques.
Our atelier currently holds four hulls in various stages of restoration, including a nineteenth-century gabarre de vin and a mid-century ponton ostréicole from the Bassin d'Arcachon. Work sessions run on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings throughout the year. Volunteers with any level of experience are welcome: experienced naval carpenters lead the skilled work, while newcomers contribute to cleaning, caulking preparation, and the vital work of sanding and finishing. Every session is accompanied by a short discussion of the documentary evidence underpinning the restoration choices being made.
A structured oral-history programme recording the testimonies of the Gironde's last generation of working mariners.
Launched in 2008, Mémoires de l'Estuaire has so far produced over 340 hours of recorded interviews with retired bateliers, ostréiculteurs, pilotes de la Gironde, and the families of those trades. Recordings are transcribed, indexed, and deposited with both our own archive and the Archives Départementales de la Gironde. Selected extracts are made available via our website and have been incorporated into educational materials used by over forty schools across the Bordeaux Métropole. The programme continues to accept new interviewees: if you or a family member has lived experience of working the Gironde waterways, we want to hear from you.
A curriculum-linked outreach programme bringing Gironde maritime heritage into primary and secondary classrooms.
Working in partnership with the Rectorat de Bordeaux and individual schools in Pessac, Mérignac, and Bordeaux, our education team delivers workshops that combine documentary sources — old maps, photographs, logbooks, oral-history extracts — with direct engagement with restored vessels and the volunteers who maintain them. Workshops are designed to meet specific programme requirements in history, geography, and arts plastiques, and can be delivered either at participating schools or at our atelier. We also offer extended project partnerships in which a class follows a single restoration across an academic year, culminating in a visit to the vessel and a meeting with the restoration team.
Our annual public heritage day on the Gironde, bringing restored vessels, craftspeople, and community together on the water.
Each June, the Section de Pessac organises a full-day event on the Gironde estuary at which our restored vessels are exhibited afloat, traditional maritime trades are demonstrated, and the wider community is invited to come aboard, meet the restoration team, and discover the living history of the waterway on their doorstep. The event typically draws several hundred visitors of all ages and includes demonstrations of traditional caulking, rope-making, and net-mending alongside guided historical walks along the riverbank. Surplus funds raised through the day's tombola and refreshments directly support our restoration programme for the following year.