baliseurs

Updated: May 20, 2025

All day and all night boats are coming in and going out: The English steamers with their peculiar, dull, penetrating whistle that one hears at a great distance steam tugs that take passengers and luggage out to the Atlantic liners, lying just outside the digue yachts, pilot boats, easily distinguished by a broad white line around their hulls, and a number very conspicuously printed in large black letters on their white sails, "baliseurs," smart-looking little craft that take buoys out to the various points where they must be laid.

Mary Alsop King Waddington - Chateau and Country Life in France