Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the river banks to watch the vessels and their 6,000 sailors make their way to the open sea in a spectacle that marked the end of the fourth Rouen Armada.

Only the two-masted Russian brigantine Avos, undergoing repairs, was unable to join the 120-kilometre (80-mile) voyage.

The flotilla was led by Britain's Phoenix, a two-masted tall ship that played in Ridley Scott's 1992 film about Christopher Columbus "1492: The Conquest of Paradise".

The Rais Charkaoui patroller from Morocco brought up the rear of the parade.

Most of the vessels were headed to the Netherlands to take part in the Delft Sail, another naval gathering.

The Armada's organisers said an estimated 6.4 million visitors filed up and down the quaysides, adorned with some the world's most gracious sailing vessels.

Among the "cathedrals of the sea" at the week-long festival were The Dewaruci, a three-masted barquentine from Indonesia and the navy training ships Sagres II of Portugal and Cuauhtemoc of Mexico.

Other attractions were the Netherlands' 76-metre (250-foot) Stad Amsterdam -- the first clipper ship to be built in 130 years -- and the 109-metre (358-foot) full-rigged Mir from Russia.

The next Armada will take place in Rouen in 2007 or 2008.

WAR.WIRE