Origins / The schooner Tara, the story of a dream to come true

This is the story of the schooner Tara, known today for its ocean rescue missions. However, its history goes back if we want to understand its construction to the 19th century, to the dawn of the realization of the first polar drift. Built in 1986, this beloved ship had a historic life before becoming a scientific platform.

Chloé Torterat Published on August 1, 2024

Tara was designed by the explorer Jean-Louis Etienne who dreamed of following in the footsteps of the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, the first explorer to have accomplished the transpolar drift. Due to a lack of funds, he sold his boat to the famous navigator Peter Blake, who notably distinguished himself in the America's Cup, before being taken over by a French businessman, Etienne Bourgois, who transformed it into a scientific base on the ocean. However, the schooner will accomplish the drift for which it was designed in 2007. On May 8, Tara and her crew, led by New Zealander Grant Redvers, passed 88° 32' N, the northern position never reached by a ship other than an icebreaker or a submarine, 160 km from the North Pole. While Nansen on his ship had taken three years to complete the Arctic drift, Tara will only take sixteen.

This is the story of the schooner Tara, born from the ambition of its designer in 1986 and which is now the flagship ship of the Tara Expeditions Foundation, the first foundation recognized as being of public utility? dedicated aeuros the Ocean. If today she is intended to serve as a scientific platform to predict and better anticipate the impact of climate change, she is inspired by the Fram, a ship thought and designed differently from codes in force in the 19th century.