In the outside area is a 1:1 model of the
Medusa raft
From wikipedia:
Méduse was a 40-gun
Pallas-class frigate of the
French Navy, launched in 1810. She took part in the
Napoleonic Wars, namely in the late stages of the
Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 and in raids in the Caribbean.
The frigate
Méduse sailing various courses close hauled
In 1816, following the
Bourbon Restoration,
Méduse was armed
en flûte to ferry French officials to the port of
Saint-Louis, in
Senegal, to formally re-establish French occupation of the colony under the terms of the
First Peace of Paris. Through inept navigation by her captain, an
émigré given command for political reasons but incompetent as a naval officer,
Méduse struck the
Bank of Arguin off the coast of present-day
Mauritania and became a total loss.
Most of the 400 passengers on board evacuated, with 151 men forced to take refuge on an improvised raft towed by the frigate's launches. The towing proved impractical, however, and the boats soon abandoned the raft and its passengers in the open ocean. Without any means of navigating to shore, the situation aboard the raft rapidly turned disastrous. Dozens were washed into the sea by a storm, while others, drunk from wine, rebelled and were killed by officers. When supplies ran low, several injured men were thrown into the sea, and some of the survivors resorted to cannibalism. After 13 days at sea, the raft was discovered with only 15 men still alive.
of the tragedy stirred considerable public emotion, making
Méduse one of the most infamous
shipwrecks of the
Age of Sail. Two survivors, a surgeon and an officer, wrote a widely read
book about the incident, and the episode was immortalised when
Théodore Géricault painted
The Raft of the Medusa, which became an iconic artwork of French
Romanticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Méduse_(1810)
further info from wikipedia:
Course to Senegal
Aftercastle of
Méduse, by
Ambroise-Louis Garneray
Line-crossing ceremony aboard
Méduse on 1 July 1816
On 17 June 1816, a convoy under the command of Chaumareys on
Méduse departed
Rochefort accompanied by the storeship
Loire, the
brig Argus and the
corvette Écho to receive the British handover of the port of
Saint-Louis in
Senegal.
Méduse, armed
en flûte, carried many passengers, including the appointed French governor of
Senegal, Colonel
Julien-Désiré Schmaltz, his wife Reine Schmaltz, and his secretary, Joseph Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Griffon du Bellay.
Méduse's complement totaled 400, including 160 crew plus a contingent of marine infantrymen intended to serve as the garrison of Saint-Louis. The ship reached the island of
Madeira on 27 June.
Schmaltz then wanted to reach Saint-Louis as fast as possible, by the most direct route, though this would take the fleet dangerously close to the shore, where there were many sandbars and reefs. Experienced crews sailed further out.
Méduse was the fastest of the convoy and, disregarding his orders, Captain Chaumareys quickly lost contact with
Loire and
Argus.
Écho kept pace and attempted to guide
Méduse, but to no avail.
Écho then prudently moved further out to sea.
Chaumareys had decided to involve one of the passengers, Richefort, in the navigation of the frigate. Richefort was a philosopher and a member of the Philanthropic Society of
Cape Verde, but had no qualification to guide ships. As she closed on the coast of Africa, the course of
Méduse became dangerous. Richefort apparently mistook a large cloud bank on the horizon for
Cape Blanco on the African coast, and so underestimated the proximity of the
Bank of Arguin off the coast of
Mauritania.
On 2 July 1816, now more than 100 miles (161 km) off course,
Méduse ran into increasingly shallow water, with both Chaumareys and Richefort ignoring signs such as white breakers and mud in the water. Eventually, Lieutenant Maudet took it upon himself to start taking soundings off the bow, and, measuring only 18 fathoms (33 m), warned his captain. Realising the danger at last, Chaumareys ordered the ship brought up into the wind, but it was too late, and
Méduse ran aground 50 kilometres (31 mi) from the coast. The accident occurred at a spring
high tide, which made it difficult to re-float the frigate. The captain refused to jettison the 14 three-tonne cannons and so the ship settled into the bank.
The raft
Plan du Radeau de la Méduse, au moment de son abandon ("Plan of the Raft of the Medusa at the moment of its abandonment"), frontispiece to
Naufrage de la frégate Méduse by
Alexandre Corréardand Jean-Baptiste Henri Savigny. Paris 1818, Bibliotheque Nationale.
The
Méduse was not carrying enough
lifeboats to transport all of the passengers to safety in a single trip. Plans were proposed to use the ship's
launches to ferry the passengers and crew to shore, just 50 kilometres (31 mi) away, which was expected to require at least two boat trips. Numerous ideas for lightening
Méduse and immediately coming off the
reef were also proposed, in particular that of building a raft on to which the crew could unload her cargo.
A raft measuring 20 metres (66 ft) long and 7 metres (23 ft) wide was soon constructed with wood salvaged from the wreck, and was nicknamed "
la Machine" by the crew.
[8][
unreliable source?] On 5 July, a
gale developed and
Méduse showed signs of breaking up. The passengers and crew panicked, and Chaumareys decided to evacuate the frigate immediately, leaving no time to enact the original plan of making multiple ferry trips to shore. Instead, it was suggested that the raft could be used to carry passengers and
Méduse's longboats could tow the raft to safety; 146 men and one woman boarded the woefully unstable raft. The raft had few supplies and no means of steering or navigation. Much of its deck was underwater. Seventeen men decided to stay with the disabled
Méduse, and the rest boarded the ship's longboats.
The crews of the boats soon realised that towing the raft was impractical and began to fear being overwhelmed by the desperate survivors aboard the raft. After traveling only a few kilometers, it was decided that the tow ropes should be cut, leaving the raft and its occupants to their fate. The lifeboats, with the captain and Governor Schmaltz aboard, sailed away to safety. Some landed immediately on the coast of Africa, with most of the survivors making their way overland to Senegal, though some died on the way.
On the raft, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Among the provisions were casks of wine instead of water. Fights broke out between the officers and passengers on one hand, and the sailors and soldiers on the other. On the first night adrift, 20 men were killed or committed suicide. Stormy weather threatened, and only the center of the raft was secure. Dozens died either in fighting to get to the center or because they were washed overboard by the waves. Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day there were only 67 people left alive on the raft, and some resorted to
cannibalism to survive. On the eighth day, the fittest decided to throw the weak and wounded overboard, leaving just 15 men remaining, all of whom survived another four days until their rescue on 17 July by the brig
Argus, which accidentally encountered them.
Le Radeau de la Méduse (1818–1819) by Théodore Géricault
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Méduse_(1810)
