The famous triple mat sailboat The Belem – a training and tourism vessel formerly of the merchant navy - made a stopover in Malta last month. A private tour was organised on Sunday 15 June for French and Maltese people interested in sailing and maritime history. More than 130 people visited her. The team proposed also a navigation training session towards Corsica.

On Monday, an official lunch was offered onboard by Ambassador of France to MaltaMichel Vandepoorter welcoming Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis, Malta Tourism Authority CEO Josef Formosa Gauci, ITS chairman Ernest Azzopardi, MTA director Dominic Micallef, ROCS Group director Rachel J. Vella, Britannia Travel Malta CEO Noel Farrugia, Captain Yannick Simon and other guests.

The friendly lunch was an good opportunity  to deal with the issue of tourism both in France and in Malta and to envisage the ways to reinforce the links and the cooperation between the two countries in that field, so important for the economic growth and trade balances.

History

Belem is a three-masted barque from France.

She was originally a cargo ship, transporting sugar from the West Indies, cocoa, and coffee from Brazil and French Guiana to Nantes, France. By chance she escaped the eruption of the Mount Pelée in Saint-Pierre de la Martinique on 8 May 1902. All Saint Pierre roads were full of vessels, no place to anchor the ship. Captain Julien Chauvelon angrily decided to anchor some miles further on in a beach - sheltered from the exploding volcano.

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 300 HP each.

In 1922 she became the property of the beer baron Sir Arthur Ernest Guinness, who renamed her the Fantôme II (French spelling) and revised the rig from a square rigger. Hon. A.E. Guinness was Rear Commodore of the Royal St. George Yacht Club, in Kingstown, Ireland from 1921-1939. He was Vice Commodore from 1940- 1948. Hon. A.E. Guinness took the Fântome II on a great cruise in 1923 with his daughters Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh. They sailed the seven seas in making a travel round 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. Hon. Arthur E. Guinness died in 1949. The 'Fantome' was moored in the roads of Cowes, Isle of Wight.

In 1951 she was sold to the Venezian count 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

The three masted barque Belem is the last 19th century French trading ship still sailing. 

She was built at Chantenay sur Loire, near Nantes and put to sea in 1896. As a merchant vessel she crossed the Atlantic 33 times from 1896 to 1913. In those days, her single deck covered 153 square metres of hold containing up to 650 tons of goods and  merchandise, mainly cocoa from Brazil, rum and sugar from the French West Indies. The only structure built on deck was the galley.

In 1914 the Belem was sold to the Duke of Westminster, turned into a private yacht, refurbished and fitted with engines.

The original masts were made of wood – except for the steel bowsprit.  Today, all the masts are made of steel. In 1914 The main deck house was built in 1914,  the small deck house after 1921; the two were joined together in the 1960s. The wheelhouse on the quarterdeck is a more recent addition, dated 1984. 

 However, the changes made to the Belem throughout her life, first as a merchant ship, then a yacht and finally as a training ship, never really altered her basic appearance. She looks today much as she did when she was first built. The option taken by the Belem Foundation when it had the ship restored in the early Eighties was to respect the modifications made in the successive episodes of her exceptional career.

The school ship 

 The newly refurbished Belem was put back to sea in 1985,  the Belem Foundation having decided she would sail as a training ship. She is manned by a crew of 16 experienced officers and men, chosen from the ranks of the merchant navy ; not only are they fully qualified to sail this very special ship in maximum safety conditions, they are also skilled teachers, since the Belem's basic mission is to promote the knowledge and understanding of France's maritime heritage.
The Belem has a capacity of up to 48 trainees. The ship is also available for functions and private events. She is officially authorised to sail on the Eastern Atlantic, the Channel, the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Special authorisation can be given to sail to further destinations, such as the  transatlantic crossing she made to New York in 1986 and her 2002 “Atlantic Odyssey” to Senegal, Brazil, Martinique and the Azores.

The Belem is also regularly involved in the Tall Ships events as a living symbol of France's naval history, since she carries the French colours, but also as a reminder of the other flags she flew in the course of her long career : the British flag for 38 years, the Italian for 27.

The Belem is the oldest ship in the world figuring on the register of the Bureau Veritas.

 

Virtual visit: www.360-vjoncheray.fr/belem/belem2.html