La JAPONAISE

[aukepalmhof]

The first stamp in 2025 issued by TAAF shows us a former Japanese whale catcher. I have not more details of the whale chatcher as what I have received from Mr. Jean-Louis Araignon below.

The JAPONAISE is the annex of a whaling ship operating in the Southern Lands area in the 1960s.
This boat, inadvertently stranded on the beach of Port-Alfred on the island of Possession (Crozet archipelago), was never recovered by its mother ship, the KIZAN MARU.
In order to promote scientific activities in Kerguelen, it was decided to transform this boat into a means of navigation in the Gulf of Morbihan.

The first ship registered in the new maritime district of Port-aux-Français and brought by the GALLIENI to the Kerguelen Islands in 1970.
Crewed by a crew of two men for 20 years, La JAPONAISE provided eminent services for all scientific programs, but also the logistics of the refuges in the Gulf of Morbihan.
In particular, it served as logistical support for the experimental salmon breeding station on Lac d’Armor.
At the end of the 1980s, the arrival of La CURIESE, a smaller but more imposing ocean-going vessel, made it possible to develop scientific and oceanographic work of a different scale around the Kerguelen Islands, but also in the other southern islands,

TAAF 2025 2.59 Euro sg?, Scott?