Published in posters, postcards and books, this picture of the Belem is well-known. It almost did the tour of the world... I saw it in many places always with the same emotion : in a shop of Bouvelard Saint-Laurent in Montreal, in a café in the island of Ouessant (France), in a English shipchandler store...

This spectacular picture was taken by Philip Plisson, an artist to whom we owe beautiful pictures of ships and of Brittany, a French region I'm fond of.

Looking at this picture, you will remark a yellow spot, a man in oilskins on the forecastle port side. It is me! I was there with a German trainee (the silhouette to my right), during a voyage from Cadix to Nantes.

The picture was taken from an helicopter off Belle-Île-en-Mer (a beautiful island in the Atlantic, situaded off the South coast of Brittany) mid-november 1995.

Philip Plisson had followed the journey of Belem since Corsica. He was working on a report for the centenary of the ship. For more than a month, he had known only “la pétole” (light winds). Pictures of the Belem in stronger wind conditions were really missing from his work.

This small unhoped-for gut of wind off Morbihan's coasts, a day prior to our arrival in Nantes, was a gift of heaven for him...

Since then, I'm always proud to say to more of less doubtful people that I was the yellow spot on that wonderful picture!

Les prix sont hors assurance complémentaire obligatoire (anulation/bagages).

Renseignements et réservations :

Fondation Belem
23, rue de la Tombe-Issoire, 75014 Paris
Tél. 33 (0)1 58 40 46 46
Fax 33 (0)1 58 40 48 47
Web : http://www.fondationbelem.com/

Détail amusant, le Belem a exactement le même poste d'amarrage quand il vient de nos jours à Marseille, cul au Quai des Belges et l'avant sur coffre. Ces photos datent probablement de 1955-1960. Sur le second cliché, on y aperçoit même le "ferry-boate" !

Le Giorgio Cini au vieux port de Marseille (circa 1955-1960).

To assure the future of the boat, a foundation is created in March, 1980. It was chaired by Jérôme Pichard, delegate general of the Union nationale des Caisses d'Épargne of France (UNCEF). Its administrators were recruited among the various bodies ready to contribute to the protection of the boat (UNCEF, Ministries, Navy, etc.).

The UNCEF donated the sailboat bought back in Venice to the new Foundation.

The Navy, which had sent a technical mission in Venice and which had assured the return of the boat in Brest, would have liked completing its fleet of old sailboats (two schooners l'Étoile and the Belle Poule, one cutter the Mutin) by a prestigious unit as the Belem. The sailboat would have been then let during summer months to the Caisses d'Épargne to welcome civil trainees. But the first calculations of the works to be foreseen, about 6 million francs, exceed by far what it had planned to invest. Without giving up its participation in the Foundation, the French Navy had to accept to occupy a more modest role. (It will participate for a long period in the constitution of her crew by allocating two sailors from the National Service. The end of the mandatory military service had terminated this practice.)

The Foundation makes the brave choice to make navigate again the Belem rather than to transform her into amuseum ship definitively in quay, risky and expensive choice on which everybody congratulates them today.

A long work of expertise begun and ended only in February, 1981 when the program of the works to be realized was finalized.

The French Navy gave a graving dock in the Arsenal. The first works Began on May 5th, 1981, supervised by Jean Randier, the famous French tall ship specialist with a team from the Ateliers de La Perrière.

They proceeded to dimasting, to replace steel sheets, to change the ballast (3 800 pigs of cast iron and thirty tons of concrete in the bow for which was necessary to use pneumatic drills).

After 4 months, it was decided to transfer the boat in Paris where the rehabilitation program would be pursued. It was a communication program that was intended to increase awareness the general public and especially the public authorities which could free the capital necessary for the completion of the project.

It was so on September 8th, 1981 that the Belem, dragged by the Efficace, began her travel towards the capital. She moored quai de Suffren, at feet of the tour Eiffel, on September 14th. Masts had arrived a short time later, by train.

It was immediately a success, the press was part of it and the Parisians were crowding weekends to discover the Belem. During weekdays, it was the tourists and the school classes.

A small museum was fitted out in the tween deck. And the works continued in this site opened to the public: subdivision and watertight doors, water circuit for the fire, the revision of the rigging, the caulking, etc. It was necessary that the ship answered the safety standards required by the French Merchant Navy and the Veritas' office to be able to navigate again.

The ship stayed in Paris four years and welcomed almost half-million guests. Fascinated volunteers, as a taxi driver (of whom one will speak again) for example, help during the works.

Descents towards the tween deck were created at both edge.

An unaesthetic but indispensable cockpit was built on the poop (it replaced the Italian cockpit of the spardeck dating from the time the ship was rigged as a barkentine, cockpit destroyed by the Venitian shipyard during the restoring of the rigging to a three-master barque). It had been necessary for it to move towards back the skylight with its two benches, one of the rare witnesses on the bridge of the original state of the ship in 1896.

In 1985, the Belem joined her port of registry, Nantes.

In 1986, the ship could finally make a great voyage: crossing the Atlantic Ocean towards the city of New York, she will participate to the celebrations around the centenary of the Statue of the Liberty and the demonstrations of Op' Sail.

1987 was her first season of exploitation as training ship.

Since, the boat welcomes nine months a year trainees curious to discover manoeuvers of this linen cathedral and the life aboard a tall ship. And she also gives the occasion to a wide audience to dream a little.

The management of the crew and supplies are entrusted under control of the Foundation to the Société Morbihanaise and Nantaise de Navigation.

In 1990, she participates in the Voiles de la Liberté (Liberty Sails) in Rouen.

In 1996, the Belem celebrated her centenary.

In 2002, the Belem is going back to her first destination of 1896, the city of Brazil which gave her her name, Belém (“L'Odyssée Atlantique”). It will be its second transatlantic voyage (after New York) since her return in France.

Mr Gosse, a lover of the things of the sea, had discovered the boat during holidays in Venice in 1970. He asked and obtained the permisssion of the Foundation Cini to visit the beautiful boat of the island San Giorgo:

I ignored everything of the Giorgio Cini, also, which was not my emotion when I discovered on the bulk head a coppered frame round as a porthole, protecting a painting executed straight on the panel. The drawing, a bit naive, represented a three-master boat. In its top a name: Belem, in its bottom another name: Nantes. I was on board of one of the last ocean-going sailboats of the ancient French merchant navy.”

At the sale news, Luc-Olivier Gosse called the Association pour la Sauvegarde et la Conservation des Anciens Navires Français created by Jean-Pierre Debbane, Jean Randier and Bernard Tarazzi at once.

On October 30th, 1977, a delegation of the association came to visit the Giorgio-Cini in the arsenal of Venice and to meet the director of the shipyard, Antonio Marceglia. The selling price, 5 million francs, discouraged a little the members of the French delegation, but at their return, they began to search financing. The Ministry of Defence promised a grant as well as the Ministry of Transport and the Secrétariat général à la Marine marchande. It was far from being enough. An appeal for donations was launched to the general public. It was without results.

At the same time, a Venetian association was founded with the aim of buying back the Giorgio-Cini which is henceforth a part of the landscape of the laguna. It was a serious competition for the Frenchmen, especially since an Italian bank declared itself ready to finance the project.

It was only in 1979, the so awaited patron made his appearance : the Union Nationale des Caisses d'Épargne and two men, Jérôme Pichard, the delegate general of the Union, and Mr. de Maulde, the director of Treasury.

On January 27th, 1979, Jérôme Pichard, Luc-Olivier Gosse, Jean-Pierre Debbane and the engineer Kerlerent went to the shipyard in Venice. A long negotiation began with Antonio Marceglia at the conclusion of which the price was lowered by 500 000 francs. So, the Giorgio-Cini is sold for 4,5 million francs.

A mission of the French Navy and the Direction des Constructions et Armes navales (DCAN) examined the state of the boat. Some additional work on the hull was asked to the shipyard and the name of the boat is changed, from the Giorgio Cini, to the Belem of Nantes once again.

On August 15th, 1979, she was put back in sea to the Navy's tugboat, the Actif, under the command of Captain Nivault, which is going to escort her to Toulon.

Ten days later, she entered the port of Toulon.

On September 5th, the deep sea tugboat the Éléphant took care of her and lead her to Brest. On September 17th, joined at the Pointe Saint Mathieu by the schooners of the Navy, the Étoile and the Belle-Poule, the cutter the Mutin and the launch of the maritime admiral-prefect of Brest, the Belem went triumphantly into the natural harbour.

The Italian Navy entrusted the Scilla, an old sailboat to the centre. But this one is too timeworn to serve as training ship. After some searches, the Giorgio Cini foundation discovers the Fantôme II, laid up in the island of Wight and for to sell.

So, the boat changed pavilion again and left for Venice where it is renamed Giorgio-Cini in memory of Vittorio Cini's son who disappeared in a plane crash on August 31st, 1949.

She underwent considerable alterations one more time: the rigging changed from the one of a full-rigged ship to a barkentine's one. On the deck, a big wheelhouse was built (its remains are visible on the current spardeck). The tweendeck was modified to welcome sixty children.

All year round, the Giorgio-Cini navigated mainly in the Adriatic Sea. On board, young men, 12 to 16 years old discovered life at sea and the sailor's profession in an almost military atmosphere.

In 1965, the Giorgio-Cini was considered too old to achieve its mission of training ship in satisfactory conditions in regard of safety. She was replaced by a vessel given by the Navy.

So, she stayed in quay on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the seat of the Foundation, expecting better days. She served temporarily as boarding school.

In 1972, the boat is given up free of charge by the Foundation to the carabinieris who wished to have a prestigious vessel and who were ready to invest in the necessary works to save the boat.

The Giorgi-Cini left for the shipyard, Cantieri Navali e pharmacy Meccaniche di Venezia (CNOMV). Both Bollinder's engines dating from the First World War were replaced by two 300-horses Fiat engines. The rigging was restored into a full-rigged one and the wooden high masting was changed for steel masts.

In 1976, the carabinieris had no more means to pay the invoices of the shipyard and gave up their training ship. She became the property of the shipyard which hoped to resell her to cover her expenses.

Site of the Foundation Giorgio Cini: http://www.cini.it/.
Site of the Istituto Professionale di Stato per l’Industria e le Attività Marinare Giorgio Gini: http://www.provincia.venezia.it/cini/.

She just escaped a German bombardment. The mainmast and the yards were damaged. The sails stored in a warehouse, were completely destroyed by a fire.

During some months, she served as headquarters of the fast speedboats of the Forces Navales Françaises Libres.

The Fantôme II will remain parked in the island of Wight until 1952.

The boat is renamed the Fantôme II (like for his first ship, the Fantôme, Ernest Guinness chose to use the French spelling of phantom to name her. Many English sources made a mistake by calling her the Phantom II).

Le bateau rentre au chantier irlandais Harland & Wolf pour transformation [à confirmer]. Ce chantier de Belfast est connu pour avoir construit, entre 1909 et 1911, les deux paquebots de la White Star, l’Olympic et son sister-ship le Titanic.

Various works are made:

• The strapping lad was made longer.
• The interior was reshaped and the decoration redone, a bar was created, a big upright piano installed...

On this picture, notice some changes with regard to the Westminster years: small antannaes of telegraph appears to the top of the mainmast and the foresail mast. The line of sham ports stops before the bow. The carfts, the lower masts and yards are not painted in white any more, life jackets are moored to the balustrade of the back, etc.

The Fantôme II during a nautical rallye (with the HMAS Vampire D68, launched in 1919 - If somebody can identify the other ships, please send me a small e-mail quickly...).

Lounge-office (maybe the captain's lounge, under the poop, on starboard).

The impressive upright piano (at a place difficult to identify now)...

Guinness navigated all year long. Of the journeys, we should remember a tour of the world via Panama and Suez from March 29th, 1923 till March 2th, 1924, 31 129 miles:

• Southampton, Sevilla,
• Las Palmas, Saint-Vincent, Trinidad,
• La Guaira - Caracas, Colón, Panamá,
• Galápagos, the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Suva-Viti Levu, Salomon, Caroline Islands,
• Shimizu, Osaka, Tien-Tsin, Shangai, Hongkong, Singapour, Penang, Colombo,
• Aden, Port-Saïd, Crete, Gibraltar, Southampton.

She will be also seen in Spitsbergen in the Arctic (photography above, on 1925), in France in Marseille, in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

During the summer, 1930, Julien Chauvelon, 55-year-old, is invited on board while the Fantôme II made stopover in Nantes. One imagines the surprise of the former captain of the Belem when he discovered the alterations and the luxurious organizations which had considerably modified the aspect of the boat.

In 1937, the Fantôme II is in Montreal, for the celebrations of the coronation of George VI.

In 1939, Ernest Guinness died.

The boat was sold to the duke of Westminster, lord Hugh Richard Arthur, on February 11th, 1914 for the sum 3 000 pounds sterling, with the intervention of the broker Arthur Bellingham. It was chosen for the beauty of her lines, her dimensions and her state of accurate maintenance which one owed to her captain, Julien Chauvelon.

On February 17th, the Belem left Nantes with the captain Chauvelon and her usual crew. She took the direction of Southampton. The future British captain of the Belem was also on board for commissioning.

Having redden out a violent storm in the Channel, the boat arrived on February 23th, 1914. In quay, the French pavilion was brought and replaced by the Union Jack. Imagine the big emotion felt by Julien Chauvelon and her faithful crew at this moment there. Expressing his thanks, the duke of Westminster offered the captain a golden watch.

The boat returned to the shipbuiding yards for transformation.

On June 28th, the archduke heir of Austria-Hungary's throne, François Ferdinand, and his wife, were murdered in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Prinzip. On August 3rd, Germany declared the war in France, and the next day United Kingdom entered in turn to war. At 35-year-old, the duke embarked on a vessel of Royal Navy and will be decorated in 1916 with the Distinguished Service Order.

In spite of these events, the works continued on board. The least visible but the most essential of all alterations will be the motorization of the sailboat (two Swedish engines Bollinder of 250 horses each).

Document : Plans des aménagements du duc de Westminster.

The following works were also done:

• The wooden lower masts are replaced by the others in steel.
• The mizzenmast sheltered a gas vent.
• The poop height was increased by about fifty centimeters.
• The guard rail of the poop was replaced by massive wooden balusters.
• A kitchen was installed in the deck house.
• A deckhouse was built in front of the mainmast to shelter a lounge/smoking room.
• A lower deck was created in the hold to accommodate luxurious cabins served by a two-flight stair.

The Belem during her Westminster's years.

It was only at the end of the First World War that the Belem could began her career of luxurious yacht. The first voyage had lead her to Saint-Nazaire, Arcachon, Biarritz, Nice, Cannes... The beginning of a fashionable, mainly summer life, on European shores.

The duke of Westminster with the captain and the chief officier. Please note to the right the telegraph to the engine room (chadburn).

Entered in the Royal Yacht Squadron, she rose the White Ensign reserved for the members and for the vessels of the Royal Navy.

As for the captain Chauvelon, he took command of steamers : the Ravitailleur torpedoed in 1915, then the Transporteur, the Perronne and finally the Chardonneret in 1919 on which he completed his career at sea in 1924. On ground, he will become an inspector of the navigation, and later an expert captain with the Comité des assurances maritimes and with the Tribunal de commerce de Nantes.

The captain Chauvelon (in the centre), his wife, and their two children: Olivier and Jeanne, on the poop of the Belem, at feet of the mizzen mast. Photography probably taken in the beginning of September, 1913, from the last campaign of the Belem (Nantes, Fort-de-France, Aruba, Nantes).

The destination was Fort-de-France. On board, there was passengers of exception: Madam Chauvelon, the captain's wife, Jeanne and Olivier, their two children as well as Constance, the governess. It was not the first journey of Madam Chauvelon on board, she had already made her honeymoon trip on it a dozen years before.

The captain Chauvelon surely knew that he will have to abandon his dear boat and doubtlessly, he wanted to share this last campaign with his entire brood.

The Belem was back in Nantes on January 31th, 1914, after a stopover to Aruba where it loaded phosphates.

Of all the “Antillais”, the Belem was one of the last ones still working at that time. The world changed, steamers dethroned the big sailboats and the first world war will be almost fatal to the rest of the fleet with masting and sails. Thanks to the beauty of her lines, her future usage of luxury yacht will save her from swashbucklers and Germans.

Document : Tableau récapitulatif des 32 campagnes au commerce.

Le Belem adopte une livrée gris foncé. La ligne de faux-sabords de l’armement Demange disparaît.

The crew, with the exception of a ship's boy, did not change. Boatswain and sailors were always the same. In a letter sent to its family, Briaud (the boatswain) wrote not without a certain naive pride: “the boat is served by a crew which is what is the best in Nantes and even somewhere else: there are never incidents or wounded persons on board.” [Jean Noli, 1996].

Observe on this photography of Fleuriot's years the division of the mizzen mast (due to appearance of a gaff).

Document : Rapport de mer du commandant Chauvelon, le 21 février 1913.

The Belem was acquired the shipowners Demange Frères for their line of Cayenne. In this occasion, the colour of her hull changed from black to grey with a line of sham ports.

Chauvelon remained her captain but the goods are not anymore the same: goodbye she-mules and sheeps, place to more heterogeneous loads charged in Nantes. A matter of providing supplies the famous territory for its penal colony.

After her unloasing in French Guyana, the Belem didn't return directly to Nantes because there was no freight to be brought back from this colony which produced few things. She will make stopovers during her three voyages under Demange's name so successively to the island of Aruba, to Martinique and finally to the Barbados. Of these voyages, she bring back in France sugar for the chocolate factory Menier.

After these three campaigns, the shipowning company Demange Frères was also liquidated.

He [the captain Chauvelon] was on board in the harbour of Robert during the disasters of May 8th and 26th, 1902 when the eruption of Mont Pelée destroyed Saint-Pierre-de-la-Martinique making forty thousand victims. Two French three-masters, the Tamaya of Nantes, Captain Mahée and the Biscaye, Captain Trévilly, went down with all hands during the disaster and the Belem, which was only thirty kilometers as the crow flies of the terrible volcano, was able however to escape the disaster. But the bridge was covered with ashes and pebbles, her rigging and her masting underwent some damages; the thick coat of volcanic dusts was transformed some hours later by torrential rain into a caustic and thick mud difficult to remove, as hard as a mortar.  [Louis Lacroix, 1945].

At this beginning of May, 1902, the Belem arrived in the harbour of Saint-Pierre but its place was taken by the sailboat Tamaya (Captain Mahée) of shipowner Rozier of Nantes. This small incident is going to save the Belem.

Le Tamaya
3 mâts carré de 566 tonneaux de jauge brute (pour réf. Belem : 527 tonneaux).
Construit en fer en 1862 aux chantiers de Liverpool.
Immatriculation au long cours n°356. Armement Rozier, Nantes.
Armé le 18 février 1902 pour la Martinique.
Perdu corps et biens le 8 mai 1902. Rayé de l’effectif de la Marine Marchande le 21 juillet 1902.
Commandant : Théophile Mahéo, né le 30 août 1860 à l’île aux Moines.
Rôle d’équipage :
Charles Le Cerf, second capitaine.
Joseph Sujet, bosco.
Gabriel Le Ian, cuisinier.
Jean Goubeyre, Michel Gallard, Yacinthe Lab, Pierre Rouxel, J.-Marie Peyraud, Alexis Auvray, Frédéric Mallert, Pierre Gallapel, Raymond Crequier.

Chauvelon had to go cast anchor to Robert, on the other side of the island.

In this time, Saint-Pierre was the capital of Martinique and the economic centre of the West Indies. Nicknamed Small Paris, it was a pleasant city. One of its prides was the italian-styled theater presenting various shows, the exact replica of Bordeaux's theater. It had also a world-famous botanical garden. Mont Pelée, depicted as an extinct volcano without danger for the population, was a touristic sight.

From February 1902, different outward signs of the volcano should have pull the alarm. Showers of ashes had already covered Saint-Pierre. Schools were closed since May 3rd. The population waited in the anxiety. Some fleed. Worried more by the organization of the second tour of the general election which should take place on May 11th, the authorities tried to reassure the population. On May 5th, Guérin's sugar refinery, located three kilometers from the city, is destroyed by a mudslide, making numerous victims. A tidal wave follows on the natural harbour.

The harbour regulations forbade captains to weigh anchor without authorization. On May 7th, a man nevertheless, Captain Ferrata, commanding the Orsolina, decided to leave. The boat was already covered with ashes. He knew well the angers of the Vesuvius and he saw the danger. Customs refused to let him leave, and threatened him of heavy penalties if he weighted anchor nevertheless. He left them by answering: “Who will apply them to me? Tomorrow, you will all be dead!”. The boat will be the only survivor of those that were in harbour.

On May 8th, at 8 o'clock, Saint Pierre was completely destroyed. Just in few seconds, an enormous burning mass rushed over the city, covered it, suffocated it, put fire to it then ran over the sea. The city is plunged into the darkness. Nothing was spared.

Chauvelon was ready to land to go on horseback to Saint-Pierre, lunch with the Captain Mahée. The noise of the explosion and the spectacle of the panache of smoke attracted all crewmen to the bridge. A shower of ashes arrived on the Belem.

The candidates for the general election, Fernand Clerc and Louis Percin had already fled the city at 6.30. About 28 000 inhabitants died suffocated and burned. Of this tragedy, only two survived: Léon Compère and the well-known Louis Auguste Sylbaris, said Cyparis.

The Tamaya's remains are one of the rare remains of the harbour that was identified because a bell, bearing the inscription Tamaya 1862, was brung back up to surface in 1984 by Dominique Serafini. This bell was handed to the volcanologique museum of the City of Saint-Pierre.

Below, the wreck of the Tamaya in 2001 (photo JP Plongée):

The Belem, loaded with sugar, cleaned by its ashes, leaves her shelter on August 6th.

Eight campaigns in the “West Indies” are going then to succeed one another without dramatic events from 1902 till 1907:

• Nantes / Cardiff / Trinidad / Haïti / Nantes,
• Nantes / Cayenne / the Barbados / Haïti / Nantes,
• Angleterre / Guadeloupe / Nantes,
• Saint-Nazaire / Belém / Nantes, from June 3 to September 3, 1904, with as passenger, the wife of Julien Chauvelon by way of honeymoon trip,
• Saint-Nazaire / Belém / Martinique / Nantes,
• Saint-Nazaire / Martinique / Nantes,
• Saint-Nazaire / Belém / Nantes,
• Saint-Nazaire / Cayenne / Connétable.

The first, Nantes / Pointe-à-Pitre / Nantes, in 146 days from January 12th till June 4th, 1901. Load of sugar.

The second, Saint-Nazaire / Belém / Nantes, in 87 days, from June 24th till September 17th, 1901. Load of cocoa.

The third, Nantes / Cap-Haïtien / Le Havre, in 116 days from October 30th, 1901 till February 23th, 1902. Load of sugar. It is the first time that the Belem didn't go back to Nantes.