French ships on global missions

TWO French ships are on the high seas on separate scientific expeditions: the 36m sailing yacht Tara to study oceanic ecosystems and the 46m three-mast schooner La Boudeuse studying the impact of human activity on the environment.

The Tara, designed for polar regions and used on Jean-Louis Etienne’s Transantarctica Expedition, has been described in the press as “the first icebreaking sailboat”.

It left France in 2009 for a threeyear world trip to examine the oceans, which provide half of our oxygen through their plankton and other micro-organisms, and are also
a major “sink” for carbon dioxide. Its researchers cover 12 different fields, including oceanography, ecology, biology, genetics and physics.

La Boudeuse has a dual research role on its Terre-Océan (Land & Sea) Expedition; looking at the main South American rivers and then at several Pacific islands which risk disappearing as a result of global warming.

It was commissioned by then ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo. His mission letter echoes that given by Louis XV to Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1766 as he set off
round the world in the original Boudeuse. Bougainville also had “learned men” with him and was the first to sail the seas for science.

En route, botanist Philibert Commerçon named a flower discovered in Brazil Bougainvillea. His valet, Jeanne Barét, unmasked as a woman, was therefore the first woman to go round the globe.