Bennay, Fecamp Year: Angele Aline is a Dunkirk Little Ship with a remarkable, romantic history. She is a 'Dundee' - a French corruption of 'Dandy' - the name given by British East Coast fishermen in the s to an elegant new type of ketch later adopted by the Fecamp yard where Angele Aline was built.
Jules Talleux and his two partners ordered her as a sturdy sailing trawler to go as far as Newfoundland and Iceland for cod, and to follow the shoals of herring off the Scottish coast in summer to Normandy in winter. The barrels in which the catch was salted down in her spacious hold did double duty as floats for the trawl. She was named Jean when she was launched on 3rd November Fifty-five feet long, with a 17ft. Her handsome rounded counter stern and beautiful, yet rugged lines can be appreciated in Leonce Bennay's model.
It was he who built her nearly 70 years ago and his detailed hand-written notes survive to this day. When she first went fishing from the port of Gravelines, just West of Dunkirk, she had no engine, but was towed out to sea where she would hoist her brown gaff mainsail, mizzen, gallant topsail and two foresails on her way to the distant fishing grounds.
Later she was fitted with a succession of powerful diesels, which enabled her to fish under power, and her sails were used less often. She belonged to various members of the Talleux family and was then sold to a Gerard Schollaert of Nieuport, who named her Angele Aline - the Christian names of his twin daughters.
He had her until and so was her owner at the time of Dunkirk. During the night of 28th May , when she was sailing from St. Valery en Caux, where she had gone for a new propeller, she was commandeered by the French navy to assist in the evacuation.
