The history of the Sea Explorer - Part 1

Today I want to tell you a bit more about my history, from my earliest construction through to my completion and launching in 2017.

I was born on the Lerins Islands - off Cannes, France - commissioned by a "financially comfortable" gentleman who wanted to take me to Puerto Rico.

My manufacture, hulls and deck, in marine grade aluminium by a high end ship builder, Chantier Naval de l'Esterel, then began.

Everything was off to a good start, but this passionate gentleman quickly got bored and after my hulls and deck were complete, but before I was fitted out with anything, they stopped building me.

I waited for a long time on my platform for people to continue to bring me to life, a little sad, I have to admit.

But one beautiful autumn morning, a couple of passionate sailors, Michel and Sophie Franck, arrive and tell me "you are too handsome, you are like the one we wanted to do, come on, we adopt you".

Well, not so simple, they don't have too much money, but as my rich man had already paid for me in part, the deal is concluded and I am off by sea to my new destination which they call Cap d'Agde.
They tow me with a big boat and me quiet behind.

Everything is going well and they decide to put me in a parking lot at the entrance to the port - well it's nice I see the boats passing by and there are lots of people coming to say hello.

My little couple, a teacher and an ecologist, created an association, Terre Marine and gathered around them a whole team of technicians, scientists and teachers.

I hear beautiful things: they will put on my back children, families, people who will study the sea, make me navigate to make people understand the need to preserve the Mediterranean, its marine life and in particular my friends the dolphins.

Well, not that simple, for that you always need money and I don't have the impression that since I left the Lérins Islands they have won the lottery ...

They meet seemingly important people who promise them lots of things, they believe in it and .... they often seem disappointed.

But they hang on, and after long months, they win a competition organized by the “Languedoc-Roussillon” region which helps them and the Banque Populaire du Sud agrees to lend them money.

So, it seems that in the current situation it is not frequent ... Suddenly the department of Hérault follows, the faculties, research institutes, foundations, companies and especially their lifelong friends Hyper U and Balneocap.

We even decide to put lots of names on my cases, lovers, families, but above all what I like best are the names of the children.

So here we go again, I'm being built again and my friends everywhere are collecting second-hand parts:

• one day they go to an airplane wreckage and they recover aluminum, carbon fiber floors,
• another day they go to boat wreckage and recover cargo windows ...

People come to see me and donate things that they no longer use and there is even a gentleman who gives a whole boat!

So this is quite a story, because we take it out next to me and we take it apart completely. We put its parts back on me, well that suits me well, it was a classy boat, Italian on top of that, I think it makes me look great. My favourite parts from this Italian boat are the pair of classic Barbarossa double handed coffee grinder winches.

When I say "they", it's a whole team, volunteers, enthusiasts who do not count their time, just for the pleasure of participating in this great adventure and seeing me one day sailing. My aluminum glows in happiness from all this love.

One day they find two 20m masts given to them by a professional boatmaster, well, they have to be brought from the technical area to the entrance to the port, not far, only four kilometers away.
But we are not going to rent a truck for that, too expensive, more pollution.

Instead all the friends come and by road, on foot we carry, we drive, we push and we get there, zero CO2 and full of conviviality.

In short, they put me in a coachroof, a rear deck, a lookout post to observe dolphins and marine life, great fittings and cabins with wood and equipment from my friend the Italian boat.

They decide to give me two big tractor engines, at the time I'm a little surprised, but they say it's to make nice furrows in the sea.
I don't mind if they are silent and ecological, it seems that these are the latest standards, little consumption and little discharge into the sea and into the air.

So suddenly guys to plan solar panels, wind turbines for energy and think about reducing as much as possible the impact of my navigation on the marine environment and say you have thought about my antifouling, for scientists you will not put a lot of biocides in the water all the same.

Now, I would have done better to shut up because they thought of everything and even my end-of-life cycle, my aluminium can be completely recycled I heard.

Good, we are not there yet, on the contrary, after several years of work, here I am all ready, very beautiful to make myself finally useful.