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Captain Charcot’s “Pourquoi pas ?” has not disappeared.
This tragic event is still echoing from Iceland…
Her story was and is still being written by these perils of the sea. Everything had not been said when the over-dimensioned green wave took everything away. It even became so legendary that a child grew up with Charcot and his “Pourquoi Pas ?”
Quentin arrived from Alsace to the Maritime High School of Saint-Malo. There he has been dreaming of seeing this very nice ship, with all sails up disappearing behind Cézembre, sailing towards the horizon which all discoverers have seen getting further and further.
There are enthusiastic people around him. They guide his youth with their experience.
Today, virtual images allow us to reconstitute the “Pourquoi Pas ?”. Yet, even better, Quentin has decided not to turn it into a hologram but into a reality which one can touch, aboard which one can sail, experiment, study… Many young students will be able to learn through today’s scientific and instructional tools…
Some of them shall learn the maritime skills such as climbing up the main mast or mastering the maneuvers all sailors have to know to get wet from sea spray and violent winds… “simulators” cannot let them appreciate this.
Therefore, a new “Pourquoi Pas ? ” is going to open the ice field through the new Far North passages. She can even go down towards Australia to display Charcot’s command pennant and our French flag, as the Hermione has been doing.
Hopefully, the sea has no frontier and the current communication means allow us to inform people that an association has officially been created to build a new “Pourquoi Pas ?”.
The “Pourquoi Pas ?” was launched in St Malo from the François Gautier shipyard on 18th May 1908. We have all the original plans of the ship and a shipyard is examining the construction cost. Her memory has been maintained for long at Dinard’s Yacht Club.
It is certainly an ambitious project and we are conscious of the difficulties. The respect we have for Captain Jean-Baptiste Charcot has to make us make sure that there will be no obstacle to the project and that nothing comes to prevent her from being built.
The seed has been sown.
Join our association … thank you
<pourquoipasiv@gmail.com>
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