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The fate of the CMA 110 ship
In January 1996, the Calypso ship crashed after colliding with a barge and was under water for more than two weeks. The ship has been repairing for a long time. In December 2014, the court decided to pick up the ship from the shipyard and pay for the repair and Calypso logistics 273 thousand Euros.
The famous ship of the “sea king” Jacques-Yves Cousteau “Calypso” can be sold at auction to cover the debt for the incomplete repair of the vessel, reports on Friday the agency France-Presse.
Recovery: CMA freight
In January 1996, long before the CMA transportation, the Calypso crashed after encountering a barge in Singapore’s harbor. The ship was under water for more than two weeks, after which it was lifted and towed to France. After the death of Captain Cousteau, information appeared about turning the ship into a floating museum, but the restoration of the ship has begun only in the second half of the 2000s.
The restoration of the Calypso was carried out by the masters of the shipyard Piriou in the French department of Finistère. The work stopped in 2009 when shipbuilders had disagreements with the company “Team Cousteau” – an association headed by the widow of Cousteau, Francine, who owns the ship.
In December last year, the Court of Appeal of the city of Rennes issued an order according to which the “Cousteau Team” was to take the ship from the shipyard until March 12 and pay Piriou 273 thousand Euros. Having received no news from the association, the head of the shipyard Pascal Piriou announced his intention to go to court to obtain permission to sell the yacht with a hammer.
“I think that we will find wealthy people for whom this business will be interesting and who will be ready to invest. There is an incredible amount of work, but it is feasible,” Piriou said in February 2015.
Current situation
Meanwhile, the Calypso is still in Finistère and, as Piriou expects tell, the Team Cousteau will soon receive an order to confiscate and then sell the vessel, according to which the shipyard will be able to put the ship up for an auction.
Born in 1910, Jacques-Yves Cousteau led the oceanographic research with the help of the Calypso vessel (a decommissioned minesweeper of the British Royal Navy) since the 1950s. The recognition came to the researcher with the release of the book “In the World of Silence” in 1953, written in collaboration with Frederic Dumas. The film based on the book won the Oscar and the Golden Palm in 1956. Millions of people remember Cousteau due to the exciting television series The Odyssey of the Cousteau Team.