The widow of legendary marine explorer Jacques Cousteau said she is trying to relaunch his iconic ship the Calypso — sunk, badly damaged and now in rehab — in time to mark the centennial of his birth.
Aboard the Calypso, Cousteau unlocked the mysteries of the sea for tens of millions of TV viewers in the 1960s and 1970s with his riveting documentary series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.
Francine Cousteau and the Cousteau Society announced on Tuesday a year of events on what would have been the 100th birthday of the undersea pioneer, who with his red cap for a time became synonymous with the underwater universe.
The relaunching of the 43m ship would be a centerpiece of the centennial, which begins this week.
Cousteau was born June 11, 1910, in Saint Andre de Cubzac in southwest France. He died 13 years ago at the age of 87.
“The Calypso is really the Eiffel Tower of the oceans,” Francine Cousteau told a news conference.
However, funding to put it back in the water by May next year for a world educational tour is only a hope.
The Calypso, which began its life in 1943 as a British minesweeper, was sunk in an accident in Singapore a year before Cousteau’s death. It sat underwater for three weeks and was badly damaged. The vessel was hauled back to France and is being refurbished by hand in a port in the northwestern region of Brittany. Cousteau’s widow said some US$4 million is still needed to complete the US$8 million job.
Squabbling over ownership between members of the Cousteau clan and initial plans to turn it into a museum meant that sorting out its future took years.
“The Calypso is made to ply [the waters of] the planet,” she said.
Making it seaworthy again “is giving the Calypso back its soul ... so it can be an ambassador of the environment in the years to come.”
Once seaworthy, the vessel, equipped with underwater scooters, two mini-submarines and other devices developed by Cousteau, would visit ports of the world, she said.
Another highlight of the centennial will be under way within days — the filming expedition of three marine reserves in the Mediterranean. Conducted with the National Geographic Society, the project will compare findings with those documented by Cousteau in the 1940s. Son Pierre-Yves, currently in Corsica, is leading that project.
“In this year, the 100th anniversary of his birth, we owe it to his memory to ensure that the spirit of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his work inspires new generations,” the explorer’s son said in a statement from the Cousteau Society.
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