The training ship of the French Navy, the Joan of Arc made her last voyage this weekend, from Brest to Bordeaux, to be deconstructed. This marks the end of the career of this famous warship, which also served as a helicopter carrier, after 50 years of loyal service. She left the Brest naval base on Saturday afternoon for Bassens near Bordeaux, where Veolia propreté, the Veolia subsidiary specializing in ship dismantling, will proceed with her dismantling.
This 181-meter-long ship was built at the Brest arsenal from 1959 to 1964, but was taken out of service in 2004. The Jeanne d'Arc acted as an ambassador to many countries. Over a 46-year period, the navy vessel covered 3.25 million kilometers, visiting 84 countries and making 800 port calls. In all, she could have sailed 79 times around the world, and let's not forget the thousands of officers who trained aboard her.
Despite the lavish receptions held during its stopovers, the Jeanne d'Arc is nonetheless a warship, armed with six Exocet missiles, cannons and machine guns, and able to accommodate up to 10 helicopters. She has been involved in numerous humanitarian missions, such as the liberation of the hostages on the Ponant cruise ship in April 2008, or the transport of 70,000 tons of humanitarian cargo after the Sumatra tsunami in 2004. In 1988, it also rescued some forty "boat people" fleeing Vietnam aboard a drifting boat.
Today, the Jeanne has been replaced by three naval projection and command ships, the Mistral, Tonnerre and Dixmude.
When the Jeanne d'Arc was decommissioned, a few museums and towns were able to salvage a few pieces, including Rouen, which inherited the ship's anchor. In the summer of 2015, the cruiser Colbert will make the same journey to Bordeaux to be deconstructed.
La jeanne in the Brest Narrows
