Chartered by the French Navy for the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, the response, assistance and salvage tug will ensure safety on this maritime zone.

1. Paris, September 30, 2011
1
The Abeille Languedoc arrives in Boulogne-sur-Mer (French-
English Channel)
Chartered by the French Navy for the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and
the North Sea, the response, assistance and salvage tug will ensure safety
on this maritime zone.
The Abeille Languedoc, a response, assistance and salvage tug operated by Les Abeilles, a BOURBON
affiliate, has just arrived in Boulogne-sur-Mer (north of France). Chartered by the French Navy for the
Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea, she will provide coastal protection on this maritime
zone.
With almost 90 000 vessels travelling through the seaways every year (an average of 250 vessels per
day), the French-English Channel is one of the busiest and most dangerous seaway.
Chartered since December 14, 1979 by the French Navy, the Abeille Languedoc has completed more
than 500 interventions, 200 of them being salvage and assistance, in the Channel and the North Sea
between 1979 and 2005, before being dispatched to the harbor of La Rochelle.
Her missions are:
 Shipwrecks prevention
 Vessels in distress assistance and salvage
 Pollution remediation
As each BOURBON vessel chartered by the French Navy to protect the French coastline, the Abeille
Languedoc is on permanent watch, ready to sail in less than 40 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
For more than 30 years, BOURBON, in charge of protecting the French coastline, has conducted more
than 430 assistance and salvage operations and has escorted 450 vessels and provided more than 700
stand-by ships near vessels in trouble.
4 response, assistance and salvage tugs operated by Les Abeilles (Abeille Bourbon, Abeille Liberté,
Abeille Languedoc, Abeille Flandre), 1 oil spill response vessel (Jason) operated by Les Abeilles and 3
others oil spill response vessels (Argonaute, Alcyon, Ailette) from the BOURBON fleet are chartered by
the French Navy.
More information on the BOURBON Assistance and Salvage fleet