Marine Museum Rochefort, France - MUSÉE DE LA MARINE Rochefort

Uwek

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During the days of the International Convention of Model Shipbuilding we had the chance also to visit the
MUSÉE DE LA MARINE / Marine Museum in Rochefort


http://en.musee-marine.fr/content/rochefort-musee-de-la-marine

It is Housed in the hotel Cheusses, the museum has a central role as a player in local cultural life

From the web-page:

The exceptional collections presented in the former residence of Commanders of the Navy engaged the indispensable key to understanding the great arsenal wanted by Colbert and modified continually until today.

The construction of warships is highlighted in all its dimensions: technical, military, economic, urban, visual, philosophical and also open to the imaginary voyages. arsenals models, tools, paintings, sculptures tell the story of a space of state experimental arsenal of the French Navy.

The maritime arsenal of Rochefort is today a heritage area of European importance. Several actors contribute today to revive it: Hermione, Corderie Royal, Heritage and Museums Department of the City, School of Naval Medicine, Historical Defense Service. All are complementary and invite to a rich and varied visit. Within this network, where the exchanges are numerous, the Navy Museum relies on the richness of its collections: all the objects coming from the arsenal are considered as so many witnesses who tell their stories, our history.

Unfortunately the light conditions as well the glass cases did not help myself in making better photos........but better than nothing

On the way from Hotel to the museum we passed once more the Hermione, the dockyard is close to the museum
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The german delegation of the Convention
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G'day mate
What an awesome trip you had in France. My eyes would have been so sore 'googling' at all those amazing models.
I, and I'm sure that I can speak for the rest of our members,
thank you so much for sharing this inspiring time with us all.
Happymodeling always. The only down side to your trip is that I'm Waiting Eagerly for your next log on your tremendous build: LA SALAMANDRE.
Greg
 
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.

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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.

News 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)

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further info from wikipedia:
Course to Senegal

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Aftercastle of Méduse, by Ambroise-Louis Garneray

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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

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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.

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Le Radeau de la Méduse (1818–1819) by Théodore Géricault

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Méduse_(1810)
 
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