It may seem a bit strange to start the first logbook of Belem's 2010 sailing season by a lengthy description of what happened while she was still docked at Nantes but, as they say in royal circles, one has one's reasons...
To start with, Belem stayed a fortnight - no less! - in her home port for the first time in years. Secondly, she received some ten thousand visitors - no less! - and one of the reasons for this affluence was that, for the first time, she was berthed in the heart of Nantes, at Anne de Bretagne dock, next to the eponymously named bridge that marks the limit between land and sea.
A good communications campaign by the Town Hall added extra visibility to the Belem's presence and was compounded by an official agreement bearing the signatures of Jean-Marc Ayrault, Mayor of Nantes, and Paul Le Bihan, President of the Belem Foundation: both parties agreed that Belem would contribute to promote Nantes' maritime history while the city would call upon the ship to be her ambassador, particularly abroad, on future occasions.
And then, as so often happens around and about this unique ship, the past and the present were brought together through those families whose forefathers sailed on her many years ago. It was the case once again in Nantes when the Foundation contacted and invited aboard the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Julien Chauvelon, one of Belem's most distinguished Commanders, from 1899 to February 1914, when he crossed the Channel in a thundering storm to hand her over to her new owner, the Duke of Westminster. For Bruno Chauvelon, Captain Chauvelon's youngest grandson, it was quite an emotional experience to find himself standing for the first time on the deck his grandfather had paced so long ago and to discover how beautifully kept and elegant was the ship that, as he put it “has always been a part of our family”.
So as you see, even before Belem took sail for Concarneau on April 12th at the dawn of a beautiful sunny day, there was already a good deal to write about in this season's logbook...And of course there will be many more pages to fill!
En escale à Nantes début avril, le Belem a débuté la saison par un retour aux sources : l'occasion pour les Nantais de 7 à 77 ans de redécouvrir un témoin de l'histoire de leur ville, et pour les partenaires de l'escale de réaffirmer les liens entre le navire et son port d'attache. Tout est histoire de rencontres...
