CALYPSO, The
France (1941- )
Last updated: May 30, 2018 at 0:46 am
Royal Navy BYMS-1 Class Motor Minesweeper: laid down 12 August 1941 as BYMS-26 by the Ballard Marine Railway Co., Inc., Seattle, WA; completed and transfered to Great Britain in August 1942 as J-826; converted to a car ferry and named Calypso in 1947; acquired by Loël Guinness in 1950 and offered to Jacques-Yves Cousteau who transformed it into an oceanographic vessel; struck by a barge and sunk at Singapore (1996); salvaged and towed to Marseille, France; tied up in Larochelle in an advanced stage of decay for a decade; towed to Piriou shipyard in Concarneau for complete refit in 2007 but work not completed; shipyard seeks legal order to sell the historic ship in March 2015; talks held in March 2015 to repair and relocate the Calypso to the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco for permanent exhibit; moved to Turkey in 2016 for a full refit, including new engines; damaged by fire during the refit in September 2017.
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EDITOR’S NOTE
A fire broke out on Calypso while undergoing refit at the Turkish shipyard on September 11, 2017. Only new construction on the ship was damaged by the fire and all of Calypso‘s historical components were reportedly spared. As of May 29, 2018, no official information has been released on the condition of the ship or if the refit is still underway.
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