To update on the restoration of Jacques Cousteau's ship, Calypso, I found some information on Wikipedia:
"Restoration work on the Calypso stopped in February 2009 due to non-payment of bills by Francine Cousteau. Piriou Naval Services of Concarneau are owed €850,000, of the estimated total €1,737,000, for work already done on the ship. The ship is now stored in one of the ship builder's hangars.
"As of March 2009, the Cousteau Society reports that Francine Cousteau is now directing the restoration of Calypso—-which has been brought to the Piriou shipyards in Brittany—-as an "ambassador for the seas and oceans." The restoration will be a complete refurbishment making Calypso a self-powered mobile "ambassador."
"In June 2010, the BBC reported that the Calypso was to be relaunched to mark the centenary of Jacques Cousteau's birth. According to one of the ship's former crew who visited the shipyard, the vessel was still being stored in several pieces in the same hangar as of 11 June 2010--the official date of the centenary--and is unlikely to sail any time soon."
Looks as though the Calypso may never be restored unless someone gets a better grip on the project.
Remember Jacques-Yves Cousteau's ship, Calypso? Well, she's not actually dead yet, but in fact, is on her way for a comeback as restoration has begun to transform her into a permanent museum of Cousteau's important contributions to ocean research.
From Wikipedia, here are important facts about Captain Cousteau and the Calypso:
Jacques-Yves Cousteau (June 11, 1910 – June 25, 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française. He was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau or Captain Cousteau.
The Calypso is the ship that he outfitted as a special research vessel, state-of-the-art for its time. Together with his crew, Cousteau produced more than 120 television documentaries about the sea.
The Calypso was: •equipped as a mobile laboratory for field research and was originally a wooden-hulled minesweeper built for the British Royal Navy by the Ballard Marine Railway Company of Seattle, Washington, USA. •made from Oregon pine. •became a ferry between Malta and the island of Gozo after World War II. •purchased in 1950 by the Irish millionaire and former MP Thomas Loel Guinness. •leased to Cousteau by Guinness for a symbolic one franc a year. •accidentally rammed by a barge and sunk in the port of Singapore on January 8, 1996. •later towed to Marseilles, France, where she lay untouched for two years. •towed to the basin of the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle in 1998, where she was intended to be an exhibit, but family disagreements caused a long series of legal delays on the start of any restoration work. •transferred to Concarneau on October 11, 2007, where she will be restored at the Piriou Shipyard and transformed into a permanent exhibit.
Here's a tribute to Calypso set to John Denver's 1975 song, "Calypso," which he wrote about the world famous vessel:
More historical information:
Translation of the video description: "Thanks to the association of the Friends of the maritime Museum, two former collaborators of the commander Cousteau came with the La Rochelle to find the team of mativi.fr to speak about Simone Cousteau, the first woman of the man to the red bonnet, which passed most of her life on Calypso. In front of the wreck of the old Jocelyne minesweeper which stagnates in water rochelaises since 1998 de Pass and Jean-Marie France takes you on board in their memories. Report Florent Loiseau, Raphaël Blachère and Jennifer To summon."
Watch a tour of the ship in her present state of disrepair:
Translation of the video's description: "Under the eye of the camera of mativi.fr, Calypso left the port of the La Rochelle where it had stagnated for 9 years, Concarneau direction to be restored there. The event took place on October 11 at 4 o'clock in the morning, one great moment of emotion. The day before, a hundred people had met around the wreck to wish him good voyage. Report Raphaël Blachère and Frederic Fleureau."
See the video clip below of the start of her journey from La Rochelle. Although the video is quite dark, it marks the historic event of her first trip from port in many a year. The old girl can still float!
Keep track of the restoration of the Calypso at the Cousteau Society.
Recently, I flipped through an encyclopedia of the bizarre and came upon a curious entry about a ship called the "Dundee Star" which ran aground off Midway Island. In four years time, the abandoned ship drifted completely around the earth and came to rest in 1891 back at Midway Island, the very spot where she started her lonely journey. Now, that's really bizarre, I thought. How many ghost ships might there be just blowin' in the wind?
The term "ghost ship" has several meanings actually. Decommissioned, rusted and decayed naval vessels that are scheduled to be dismantled and scrapped are called ghost ships. Abandoned ships found drifting at sea bereft of their crews with no known explanation are also ghost ships. It is the phantom ship that appears in the mist and disappears just as suddenly that is the darling of the ghost ship tales.
Just how might the concept of the phantom ship have gotten started? It isn't hard to come up with a theory. One of the most remote and isolated places on earth is the sea. Your ticket to survival rests solely upon a ship. Once away from land, you are at the mercy of wind, wave and the temperament of the captain and crew. In days of old, many a seaman found himself attached to a rope looped beneath a vessel and then dragged from stern to bow under the ship, while crusty barnacles on the hull ripped his flesh. This punishment was called keelhauling.
Out of these rough and dangerous seafaring circumstances arose some pretty intense superstitions. Seamen kept watch for sea monsters which would surely gobble the ship. Figureheads on the bow were there to ward off evil sea serpents but could also represent the spirit of the ship. They believed that a woman exposing her breasts could calm a storm so this is why many ship's figureheads were of naked women.
Tattoos became popular because sailors believed a tatto was lucky. A crucifix tattoo marked them for a Christian burial if they were lost at sea and later found. A rooster and pig tattooed on a sailor's knees were supposed to keep him from ever going hungry. (He carried his own bacon and eggs.) No wonder then that superstitions about ghost ships might easily have fit into the belief system of the time. Some thought that the appearance of a ghost ship foretold the coming of a storm.
Most certainly, ghost ships are linked to shipwrecks and disasters. They usually are seen at the sight where a ship was lost. Perhaps superstitions about ghost ships may have also been fueled by finding abandoned ships and the eery feeling upon boarding them.
Think how you might have felt if you were part of the crew of the British sailing ship, Johnson, which sighted a sailing boat off Punta Arenas, Chile. As they approached, the crew observed that the ship's masts and sails were covered with a green moss-like growth. No one could be seen on board. Upon investigation of the decaying vessel, they found 20 skeletons in various parts of the ship. This was the Marlborough Glasgow which had left Littleton, New Zealand, in 1890 and had not been seen until that day in 1913.
Examples of locations where phantom ships have been seen include:
* Off the coast of Abergele, Wales, UK, where the ship was believed to be Prince Madoc's Gwennon Gorn that sailed from there. * The Great Lakes which have scores of stories about ghost ships. Two well-known ships said to return as phantom ships there are the Griffon and the Edmund Fitzgerald. * Off the Cape of Good Hope, Africa, where the legendary Flying Dutchman appears and is believed to be an omen of disaster.
Of course, phantom ship sightings are impossible to verify. One theory as to what might cause a ghost ship sighting is that they are mirages of other vessels further out to sea. An optical illusion can also occur by the refraction of light just above the horizon making it appear as though a ship sails through the sky.
The fascination of the ghost ship is not likely to disappear soon at least from that which is entertaining to us. For example, the movie, "Goonies," is about a lost ship found by a group of children who have to solve a puzzle to get the treasure. The ghost ship sails off into the horizon at the end. Another recent movie appropriately entitled "Ghost Ship," tells the tale of a salvage crew trying to tow a lifeless passenger ship back to port and the troubles they experience.
These days the likelihood of completely losing track of a ship at sea has been reduced by the use of sophisticated tracking equipment. Yet no telling when or where we might have a return visit by the decaying relic of one of those bygone vessels, or catch a glimpse of the eery silhouette of a ship in full sail just blowin' in the wind.
Sources: Mooney, Julie, and the Editors of Ripley's Believe It or Not! (2002) Encyclopedia of the Bizarre. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Ghost Ships
