iStockphoto / Roger Mechan
The Mat Incliné A Honfleur is one of those glorious European events that I wish we had more of here in the United States. Though, to be fair, we have the Naval Academy’s annual Herndon Monument Climb but there’s something about getting to participate in something like the Mat Incliné A Honfleur in Honfleur, France as an Average Joe, or the Tomatina Festival in Italy, that I’m saying we need more of here in the states.
Translating to ‘inclined mast’ it’s an event where the mast of a ship is greased up and set at an incline and dudes try to run up it and grab the French flag at the end, and it all goes down in the tiny town of Honfleur which sits at the mouth of the Seine river entering the English Channel.
The 2024 Mat Incliné A Honfleur in France (obviously) just went down and from what I’ve gathered there was a winner. He can be see in the ‘Partie 4’ video below after @daddyruddy posted 4 short TikTok clips with all the action. I suggest starting with Part 1 and working your way to the end:
The Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack really brings these to the next level. I love the dude in Part 2 taking a deep run up and getting so close to the flag only to give up within two feet and fall sideways off the mast:
I’m fairly certain the third guy to run up the inclined mast here might’ve broken his jaw that dude smacked his face on the wooden mast so hard when he ate it:
Someone had to win the Mat Incliné A Honfleur
In the final part, we know someone had to win. I just didn’t expect them to look like a spider monkey holding onto a tree for dear life in the process:
This event had been postponed for a whopping 4 years at one point due to horrible water quality hence the massive turnout of people to watch it all go down.
I can only imagine what the bragging rights for winning an event like this are. Hopefully he gets to keep the flag and everyone signed it to remind him that he was the only dude in the village who could scale the greased mast and capture all of the glory.