Francais

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Francais

Post by shipstamps » Wed Aug 20, 2008 4:19 pm

The most famous French explorer of the 20th century is Dr. Jean Baptiste Charcot.
In 1893, Charcot’s father passed away leaving him a considerable fortune of 400,000 gold francs.
He continued his medical practice but soon turned his attention to the construction of a new vessel which was to be used on a scientific expedition to Greenland.
The new ship was the beautiful three masted schooner, the FRANCAIS.
When it became apparent, early in 1903, that something had happened to delay the Swedish expedition of Dr. Nordenskjold, sailing in the Antarctic, Charcot, who had originally planned to go to the Arctic, determined to go to the rescue. He appealed to the French nation for funds and as a result the Francais was built at St. Malo in five months by Gautier. Her hull was reinforced at the waterline with transverse beams, the stem was sheathed with bronze and reinforced with ironwork, and there was a sheath to protect the hull against collisions with ice. The screw if necessary could be drawn up into the ship. A 3-masted auxiliary-engined barque of 250 tons with a length of 104ft., she set sail on August 15, 1903, from Le Havre but within two minutes one of her crew was killed by the tow rope pulling away a cleat and the vessel's departure was delayed for a fortnight. The vessel arrived in the Antarctic too late to assist Dr. Nordenskjold, who was rescued by the Argentinians before the Francais arrived on the scene. Perhaps because of the haste with which the Francais was built, she did not prove a good Polar ship. After her one voyage to the Antarctic the vessel put into Buenos Aires in 1905, in need of extensive repairs. She had run on a reef and was badly holed forward The Argentine Government purchased the ship with the intention of using her as a supply vessel for the meteorological stations at Staten Island and the South Orkneys and she was renamed Austral. Shortly afterwards she was wrecked on a sandbank while leaving the Rio de La Plata and became a total loss.
FSAT SG93, Falk Is Dep SGG37
Attachments
SG93
SG93
SG G37
SG G37

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