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Hauts-de-Seine (Department, France): Yacht clubs and rowing clubs

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Nautique Sèvres

Burgee of Nautique Sèvres - Image by Ivan Sache, 14 December 2005

The municipality of Sèvres (22,057 inhabitants) is located 22 km west of Paris, on river Seine. The Pont (Bridge) de Sèvres was a main access to Paris via Boulogne-Billancourt.
Sèvres was mentioned as Savara in Childebert's chart, dated 558. The name is built on the pre-Celtic suffix -ar, linked to water. The Royal Manufacture of Porcelaine was set up in Sèvres in the 18th century; Brongniart founded in 1824 the National Museum of Ceramic.
In 1838, the writer Honoré de Balzac bought a house in Les Jardies, a hamlet of Sèvres, where he expected to grow pine-apples; he failed and had to sell the house in 1841. The house was then squatted by the painter Corot and eventually purchased in 1878 by the politician Gambetta, who died there on 31 December 1882.
The Treaty of Sèvres, signed on 10 August 1920, took 4/5th of the territory of the defeated Ottoman Empire; it was superseded in 1923 by the treaty of Lausanne.
Sèvres is the seat of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Pavillon de Breteuil), where the standard kilogram and other are kept.

In 2002, Nautique Sèvres (website) had 80 members. Its club house is located near the Pont de Sèvres; in 2006, a new watersports park (7 ha), funded by the municipalities of Sèvres, Boulogne, Ville d'Avray, Chaville, Meudon and Saint-Cloud will be built on the Monsieur island. The club owns six Pabouks, which are smaller (2.60 m) and lighter (70 vs 450 kg!) replica of the Vadcar, a dinghy built in Le Havre around 1892, and two Norwegian Seils.
The burgee of Nautique Sèvres is vertically divided white-blue with a blue border and a black anchor flanked by the black letters "N" and "S" placed in the white field.

Ivan Sache, 14 December 2005

Société Nautique de la Basse-Seine

Burgee of SNBS - Image by Ivan Sache, 16 December 2005

SNBS (website) was founded in November 1882. Initially, the club had several club huts along the Lower Seine, for instance in Poissy, Sartrouville, Maisons-Laffitte, Le Pecq and Courbevoie. In 1889, rowers Maréchal, Dubonnet and Templier bought a club house in Courbevoie and set up the seat of the club there. In 1889, SNBS decided to organize every year a match with Société d'Encouragement; this match is the oldest still ran in French rowing. In 1900 the eight of SNBS won its first title of French champion, the first of twenty titles; in 1906, 1907 and 1908, Gaston Delaplane won the European Championship in skiff.

In 1946, Jean Séphariadès won the Diamonds Challenge Sculls race in Henley (England), defeating in final Jack Kelly, the brother of the future Princess Grace of Monaco. Séphariadès is the only French winner of that race until now. He was elected the same year the first "Champion of the Champions" by the sport magazine L'Équipe. He is the only rower to have won that title until now. In 1947, Séphariadès won the European Championship in Lucerne (Switzerland), being the last French winner in the skiff category. He was later a member of the technical staff of the French Federation of the Rowing Societies and directed the French national team at the Olympic Games in Helsinki (1952), when Raymond Salles and Gaston Mercier, from Société d'Encouragement, won the gold. Séphariadès was President of the SNBS from 1978 to 1991. He was later elected Vice-President and President of Honour. Jean Séphariadès died in 2001, aged 79.
SNBS has today 430 members, including 70 competitors.

The flag of SNBS is horizontally divided in nine stripes, alternatively blue and yellow, with a square yellow, four-stripe width canton charged with the letter "SNBS" in a square pattern. The colo rs of the club are described as blue and golden yellow.

Ivan Sache, 16 December 2005