At that time, Count Giorgio Cini, Italian aristocrat, senator, businessman and patron of several important charities, was searching for a ship he could turn into a sail training vessel based at the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore where, in memory of his son Giorgio, killed in a plane accident, he was setting up a Foundation to restore the island and build the vast cultural centre now in function there.
He had included on the island a Sea Centre, home to some 600 boys, orphaned sons of seamen and fishermen, where they could acquire professional training in the various sea-going trades. At Cowes, his agents were shown this ship the Guinness family had put up for sail following the death of Sir Arthur two years previously. Count Cini approved and so the Belem, a.k.a. “Fantôme II”, set off for her new and fourth existence.
Repaired, restored, renamed “Giorgio Cini”, she sailed the Mediterranean under Italian colours as a training ship carrying up to 60 young trainees, the “marinaretti” (little sailors), until 1965. At that point, she was considered too old, too dangerous to sail so, after some years at berth in San Giorgio Maggiore where she served as a dormitory for the “marinaretti”, she was offered to the Carabinieri – they started restoring her but it became too expensive so in 1976 they sold her to the Venice shipyards. The shipyards completed the restoration work so as to get a good price for her once she was put back on sale. In the meantime, however, back in France, her future destiny was beginning to take shape...
At the start of the Seventies, a Frenchman, Dr Luc Gosse, passionately interested in tall ships, made a trip to Venice where he visited the shipyards and, in particular, the Giorgio Cini. As he was about to enter the living space under the quarter deck, he perceived, on the outside wood panelling, a small oval painting of the ship surmounted by the word “Belem”. His curiosity was aroused ; back in France, he looked up all he could about the ship and started campaigning to make her known to the French in the hope they would be interested in bringing her back to her native country. He was a member of the Association for the Safeguard and Conservation of French Tall Ships as was Jérôme Pichard, Head of the National Union of the Caisses d'Epargne, the French Savings Bank group. When the Belem was put on sale at the Venice shipyards in 1977, Jérôme Pichard involved himself in the project to bring her back: in January 1979 the shipyards and the Caisses d'Epargne came to a mutual agreement. The French Naval Ministry offered to escort her on her way to France.
On August 15th, the Belem left Italian territorial waters; ten days later, towed by the RC Actif, she was in Toulon and then, towed by the RHM Elephant she made the long voyage round the Spanish Peninsula up to the port of Brest, in Brittany.
And so, 65 years after crossing the Channel to Britain, the valiant little ship returned to her native shores, to take her place in the saga of France's naval history.
And the story goes on...
