Belem (ship)

Last updated
Belem(02).jpg
Belem moored at Ostend, Belgium
History
Flag of France.svg France
Name
  • Belem (1896–1914)
  • Petit Antillais (1914–1921)
  • Fantôme II (1921–1952)
  • Giorgio Cini (1952–1979)
  • Belem (1979–present)
Namesake Belém, Brazil
Builder Chantiers Dubigeon, Nantes (Chantenay-sur-Loire)
Launched10 June 1896
Maiden voyage31 July 1896 to Montevideo and Belém, Brazil
Homeport Nantes
Identification
StatusActive
General characteristics
Tonnage
  • 406 tons
  • 534 GRT
Displacement750 tons
Length
  • 51 m (167 ft 4 in) LPP
  • 48 m (157 ft 6 in) LOA
  • 58 m (190 ft 3 in) (LPP + bowsprit)
Beam8.8 m (28 ft 10 in)
Draught3.6 m (11 ft 10 in)
Sail plan Barque
Endurance2 x diesel engines

Belem is a three-masted barque from France.

Line art of Belem French tallship Belem.png
Line art of Belem

She made her maiden voyage as a cargo ship in 1896, transporting sugar from the West Indies, cocoa, and coffee from Brazil and French Guiana to Nantes, France.

Contents

History

Belem escaped the eruption of Mount Pelée in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, on 8 May 1902. On arriving at Saint Pierre ahead of the eruption, Captain Julien Chauvelon found that roadsteads were full of vessels. With no place to anchor the ship Chauvelon angrily decided to anchor some miles further away off a beach, which provided shelter when the volcano erupted.

She was sold in 1914 to Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, who converted her to his private luxurious pleasure yacht, complete with two auxiliary Bolinder Diesel engines of 300 HP each.

In 1922 she became the property of Sir Ernest Guinness, of the Guinness family, who renamed her the Fantôme II and revised the rig from a square rigger. [1] [2] Guinness was Rear Commodore of the Royal St. George Yacht Club, in Kingstown, Ireland, from 1921 to 1939. He was Vice Commodore from 1940 to 1948. He took the Fântome II on a cruise in 1923 with his daughters Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh. [3] They sailed around the world via the Panama and Suez Canals including a visit to Spitsbergen. During her approach to Yokohama harbour while sailing the Pacific Ocean the barque managed to escape another catastrophe - an earthquake which destroyed the harbour and parts of Yokohama city. Guinness died in 1949. The Fântome II was moored in the roads of Cowes, Isle of Wight.

In 1951 she was sold to the industrialist Vittorio Cini, who named her the Giorgio Cini after his son, who had died in a plane crash near Cannes on 31 August 1949 . She was rigged to a barkentine and used as a sail training ship until 1965, when she was considered too old for further use and was moored at the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.

In 1972 the Italian carabinieri attempted to restore her to the original barque rig. When this proved too expensive, she became the property of the shipyard. In 1976 the ship was re-rigged to a barque.

Finally, in January 1979, she came back to her home port as the Belem under tow by a French seagoing tug, flying the French flag after 65 years. Fully restored to her original condition, she began a new career as a sail training ship.

On 8 and 9 May 2024, she carried the Olympic flame for the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics torch relay by sailing from Athens, Greece to Marseille. [4]

Current specifications of the Belem

The Belem in Dublin on 14 July 2010 Belem a Dublin 14 7 2010.JPG
The Belem in Dublin on 14 July 2010

406 tons and 51 m of length

Masting - rigging

Sails

Propulsion and equipment

Performance

Crewmen

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tall ship</span> Large, traditionally rigged sailing vessel

A tall ship is a large, traditionally-rigged sailing vessel. Popular modern tall ship rigs include topsail schooners, brigantines, brigs and barques. "Tall ship" can also be defined more specifically by an organization, such as for a race or festival.

Italian training ship <i>Amerigo Vespucci</i> Tall ship of the Italian Navy (Marina Militare)

The Amerigo Vespucci is a tall ship of the Italian Navy named after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Her home port is La Spezia, Italy, and she is in use as a training ship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cutter (boat)</span> Type of boat

A cutter is a name for various types of watercraft. It can apply to the rig of a sailing vessel, to a governmental enforcement agency vessel, to a type of ship's boat which can be used under sail or oars, or, historically, to a type of fast-sailing vessel introduced in the 18th century, some of which were used as small warships.

This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Full-rigged ship</span> Sailing vessel with three or more square-rigged masts

A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mast stepped in three segments: lower, top, and topgallant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thames sailing barge</span> Type of commercial sailing boat

A Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the River Thames in London. The flat-bottomed barges, with a shallow draught and leeboards, were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and narrow tributary rivers. The larger barges were seaworthy vessels, and were the largest sailing vessel to be handled by just two men. The average size was about 120 tons and they carried 4,200 square feet (390 m2) of canvas sail in six working sails. The mainsail was loose-footed and set up with a sprit, and was brailed to the mast when not needed. It is sheeted to a horse, as is the foresail; they require no attention when tacking. The foresail is often held back by the mate to help the vessel come about more swiftly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iron-hulled sailing ship</span>

Iron-hulled sailing ships represented the final evolution of sailing ships at the end of the age of sail. They were built to carry bulk cargo for long distances in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were the largest of merchant sailing ships, with three to five masts and square sails, as well as other sail plans. They carried lumber, guano, grain or ore between continents. Later examples had steel hulls. They are sometimes referred to as "windjammers" or "tall ships". Several survive, variously operating as school ships, museum ships, restaurant ships, and cruise ships.

<i>Suomen Joutsen</i> Finnish fregate built in 1902

Suomen Joutsen is a steel-hulled full-rigged ship with three square rigged masts. Built in 1902 by Chantiers de Penhoët in St. Nazaire, France, as Laënnec, the ship served two French owners before she was sold to German interest in 1922 and renamed Oldenburg. In 1930, she was acquired by the Government of Finland, refitted to serve as a school ship for the Finnish Navy and given her current name. Suomen Joutsen made eight long international voyages before the Second World War and later served in various support and supply roles during the war. From 1961 on she served as a stationary seamen's school for the Finnish Merchant Navy. In 1991, Suomen Joutsen was donated to the city of Turku and became a museum ship moored next to Forum Marinum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackass-barque</span>

A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.

<i>Glenlee</i> (ship) 1896 steel-hulled three-masted barque

Glenlee is a steel-hulled three-masted barque, built as a cargo ship at Port Glasgow under that name in 1896 for Glasgow owners. With later owners she was named Islamount and Clarastella. From 1922 she was the sail training ship Galatea in the Spanish Navy. Since 1993, carrying her original name, Glenlee has been a museum ship at the Riverside Museum on Pointhouse Quay, Glasgow, known as The Tall Ship at Glasgow Harbour.

HMS <i>Achilles</i> (1863) Armoured frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Achilles was an armoured frigate built for the Royal Navy in the 1860s. Upon her completion in 1864 she was assigned to the Channel Fleet. The ship was paid off in 1868 to refit and be re-armed. When she recommissioned in 1869, she was assigned as the guard ship of the Fleet Reserve in the Portland District until 1874. Achilles was refitted and re-armed again in 1874 and became the guard ship of the Liverpool District in 1875. Two years later, she was rejoined the Channel Fleet before going to the Mediterranean in 1878. The ship returned to the Channel Fleet in 1880 and served until she was paid off in 1885.

<i>Preussen</i> (ship) German steel-hulled five-masted ship-rigged windjammer sunk in Crab Bay after a collision

Preussen (PROY-sin) was a German steel-hulled, five-masted, ship-rigged sailing ship built in 1902 for the F. Laeisz shipping company and named after the German state and kingdom of Prussia. She was the world's only ship of this class with five masts, carrying six square sails on each mast.

<i>Baron of Renfrew</i> (ship)

Baron of Renfrew was a four-masted barque of 5,294 gross register tonnage (GRT), built of wood in 1825 by Charles Wood in Quebec, Canada. She was one of the largest wooden ships ever built, although she was a disposable ship built for a one-way voyage to transport timber to England and did not complete a single voyage before breaking up.

SV <i>Tenacious</i>

The SV Tenacious is a modern British wooden sail training ship, specially designed in the 1990s. When completed in 2000, it was the largest wooden ship to be built in the UK for over 100 years.

<i>Potosi</i> (barque)

Potosi was a five-masted steel barque built in 1865 by Joh. C. Tecklenborg ship yard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the sailing ship company F. Laeisz as a trading vessel. Its primary purpose was as a "nitrate clipper" collecting guano in South America for use in chemical companies in Germany. As its shipping route was between Germany, Bolivia until 1870 but, during the "pacific War" was transferred to Chile, it was designed to be capable of withstanding the rough weather encountered around Cape Horn.

Brazilian ironclad <i>Silvado</i>

The Brazilian ironclad Silvado was originally ordered by Paraguay in 1864 with the name Nemesis, but was sold to Brazil when Paraguay could not make the final payments. She participated in the 1864–70 War of the Triple Alliance between Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay against Paraguay.

Russian cruiser <i>Minin</i> Russian armoured cruiser

The Russian cruiser Minin was an armored cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy during the 1860s and 1870s. She was renamed Ladoga in 1909 when converted to a minelayer. The ship was sunk in 1915 when she struck a mine laid by a German submarine in the Baltic Sea.

Endeavour II was a three-masted auxiliary barque built in Vancouver in 1968 and originally named Monte Cristo. She was built along the lines of the brigantine Albatross as published in Uffa Fox's Second Book of Boats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zaca a te Moana (schooner)</span>

The yacht Zaca A Te Moana is a schooner with fore-and-aft rig built in 1992 at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, in Netherlands. The naval architect is Olivier Van Meer, and the interior architect is Ed Kastelein.

This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".

References

  1. Gloaguen, Laurent (October 2016). "Histoire du belem 1921-1939, le Fantôme II". 3mats.net (in French). Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  2. Bourke, Edward J. "The Guinness Fleets". lugnad.ie (in French). Journal of Research on Irish Maritime History. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  3. Derek Wilson, ‘Plunket , Aileen Sibell Mary (1904–1999)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2012 accessed 9 Oct 2017
  4. Maine, Mathieu (23 June 2023). "Paris 2024 Olympics organizers unveil torch relay map". Le Monde. Retrieved 28 June 2023.