The three-masted Belem begins a seven-month restoration project in Saint-Nazaire

A large-scale project begins this Monday in Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique) for the Belem, a famous three-masted ship which celebrated its 130th anniversary this year, reports ICI Loire Océan this Sunday. The project is expected to last seven months, until April 30, 2027, at an estimated cost of 5.5 million euros.

The ship - whose home port is in Nantes - will be dry docked in Saint-Nazaire. The time needed to completely restore the steel hull of the Belem, but also the structure of the sailboat. In 130 years of navigation, the steel that makes up the Belem has indeed worn out. Despite numerous maintenance operations, it has lost thickness. Its internal structure has been damaged, to the point that it now risks losing its authorization to sail. The urgency is such that it was considered more judicious to carry out all the work at once, rather than spreading it over ten years, as initially planned.

As explained HERE, it will therefore be necessary to remove the plating plates, a sort of steel skin which constitutes the hull of the Belem, to be able to access the heart of the ship. For the same reasons, it will be necessary to dismantle the masts, the partitions, the piping and remove the ballast which helps stabilize it at sea: in all, this represents 4,500 pieces of cast iron for a total weight of 225 tonnes. It is then that the cabin, the backbone of the Belem, can be consolidated, like its floors, which would act as ribs on the human body. New sheets will then be installed to reconstruct the hull.

Before the structural work begins, at the beginning of October, with the dismantling of the masts, the Belem will be visited one last time, next weekend in Saint-Nazaire, for Heritage Days.

As a reminder, the Olympic flame officially arrived in France on May 8, 2024 by sea, in the Old Port, in Marseille, aboard the Belem, marking the official launch of the torch relay in France for the Paris Games.