Today, for a ship to be able to sail, there are standards to be respected, established by maritime affairs and controlled by Veritas. " Compromises had to be found with these control bodies so that a historical reconstruction could navigate in a current spectrum. There have been compromises with history." explains François .
The first important compromise is almost invisible and concerns the"fixing plan" As at 18 e There were four times fewer fasteners than there are in the current version. At the time, everything was doweled, there were no bolts. But today, we placed some to tighten the assemblies. They are masked with chestnuts, little hollows in the wood. "
The second important compromise is that today, a boat of this size must necessarily be motorised in order to be able to sail in the event of problems. " You have to be manoeuvrable, but a sailboat of this size without an engine would never have been able to sail. It was thus necessary to add motors, with the installation of two electric pods ." For the engines to work, it was also necessary to generate electricity," you have generators in the hold of the Hermione which, at the time, was reserved for food storage. Today, it is the technical area of the Hermione, where we find the engines, generators, ventilation... Everything that makes it possible to sail safely."
" We were great copiers. We tried to be as close as possible to the original. We did not intervene at all on the shape of the hulls or on the dimensioning of the masts" explains François when he talks about the quality of the boat. Indeed, the Hermione was an extremely accomplished boat for the time.
Over the total duration of the project, 17 years, many people took turns at the Arsenal, but a small team followed the overall"O n was on average 10 to 12 people from the continuous jet enterprise. In total, over 17 years ½, 160 people from the company worked on the Hermione. "By adding the other states, about forty people worked on the frigate.
Discover some pictures of the construction of the Hermione
