Pourquoi-Pas (1908)
Pourquoi-Pas, the Ship which served Dr Charcot on his last expedition in the Antarctic; [image] now belonging to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle
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| History | |
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 France
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| Builder: | François Gautier, Saint Malo |
| Laid down: | 1907 |
| Launched: | 1908 |
| Fate: | Wrecked on 16 September 1936 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 445 tonnes |
| Length: | 40 m |
| Beam: | 9.2 m |
| Draught: | 4.3 m |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 7.5 knots |
| Capacity: | 5 scientists |
| Complement: | 35 men |
The Pourquoi Pas ? IV was the fourth ship built for Jean-Baptiste Charcot. She completed the second Charcot expedition of the Antarctic regions from 1908 to 1910. Charcot died aboard when she was wrecked on 16 September 1936, off the coast of Iceland. Of the forty men on board, only one survived.
In 1907, Jean-Baptiste Charcot launched a new Antarctic expedition and began work on a new ship, the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV, a three-masted barque designed for polar exploration, equipped with a motor and containing three laboratories and a library. It was built at Saint-Malo to plans by Francois Gautier, in his shipyard.
From 1908 to 1910, Charcot set out in the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV, wintering at Petermann Island, on his second polar expedition. He returned to France in 1910 laden with scientific discoveries - he had finished the mapping of Alexander Island and discovered a new island, Charcot Land.
In 1912, the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV became the French Navy's first school ship. From 1918 to 1925, Charcot took the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV on various scientific missions in the North Atlantic, the English Channel, the Mediterranean and the Faroe Islands, mainly to study underwater lithology and geology by means of drag nets, to whose material and use Charcot made major improvements.
From 1925 onwards, limited by age, Charcot lost command of the ship (though he remained on board as head of the expedition) for her many voyages around the Arctic glaciers. In 1926, Charcot and the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV explored the eastern coast of Greenland and brought back many fossils and samples of insects and flora.
In 1928, the Pourquoi-Pas ? IV set out to investigate the disappearance of the large French seaplane Latham 47 with the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on board, which had itself been looking for the Italian general Umberto Nobile, who had set out to cross the North Pole in the dirigible Italia and not been heard from since.
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Wikipedia