by Brad Matsen
With a double hull of one-inch-thick planks, 6-inch frames on 18-inch centers, and 8-by-8-inch deck timbers, BYMS-26 was strong enough to survive all but a direct explosion of a mine or artillery shell. The ship displaced 270 tons, was 136 feet long, 24 feet 6 inches wide, and drew 8 feet of water when fueled and loaded. It had accommodations for a crew of thirty-two, with armament of one 3-inch cannon and two 20-millimeter machine guns. Two 800-horsepower General Motors diesels could drive it at a top speed of 15 knots.
The Ballard Marine Railway and a half-dozen other yards around the United States built eighty of the BYMS minesweepers, which were then given to Britain for use in defending the harbors of the empire from attack. In the Royal Navy, BYMS-26 became J-826, according to the British numbering system for minesweepers. It was assigned to the port of Valletta, Malta, where it saw action during the frantic late stages of the German and Italian collapse in 1944. In 1946, the war over, the Royal Navy sold J-826 to a fisherman who converted it to carry passengers, cargo, and cars between the islands of Malta and Gozo. He took off the cannons, guns, and the minesweeping gear, scrubbed the navy numbers from its bow, and renamed his boat in honor of the mythical water nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea: Calypso.
Calypso’s owner told Cousteau that every boat in the world is for sale at the right price. He named his. The next day, Rambaud inspected Calypso and confirmed Cousteau’s own assessment. Its hull and decks were seaworthy and in need only of minor repairs and paint. Its engines and auxiliary generator had quite a few hours on them and were due for overhaul, but they wouldn’t have to be replaced. Cousteau cabled Loel Guinness in London; Guinness said buy it.
Cousteau returned to Toulon, where he asked for and was granted a three-year furlough from the navy. He retained his rank, would return to active duty in time of war, but was otherwise free from all military obligations. Dumas, who had been released from his brief service in the army after the war, signed on with Cousteau and his new ship. Tailliez wavered, first deciding to leave the navy, then reversing himself. He loved and respected Cousteau but there was no question that even as his superior officer, Tailliez was increasingly overshadowed by his friend. Better, Tailliez thought, to continue to command the Undersea Research Group, cooperating with Cousteau but moving away from him to make his own way. Auguste Piccard had sold his first bathyscaphe to the French navy after the failures during test dives off West Africa, and Tailliez would be in charge of refitting it using the same steel ball but improved gasoline and ballast tanks. To lead the Undersea Research Group through a challenge like that was much more attractive to Tailliez than leaving the navy to work in Cousteau’s shadow. Tailliez harbored no ill feelings, but he knew that expecting Cousteau to restrain himself from taking command of everyone around him was as futile as asking a fish to walk.
Cousteau, Dumas, their wives and children, and newly hired engineer Octave Leandri went to Malta to bring Calypso to the shipyard in Antibes. One of the engines ran a little rough, but otherwise the ship was sound. Turning a war-worn minesweeper into an oceanographic research ship was going to be expensive, not the easy, simple escapade of three passionate divers on another lark, but an undertaking that would require all of their cash and more. Before work actually began, Cousteau asked for financial advice from a friend, Claude-Francis Boeuf, who had experience raising money for large-scale expeditions.
Boeuf told Cousteau that every explorer he had ever known was always short of cash. Exploration itself produced knowledge but rarely a profit. Cousteau explained that his plans included producing movies, writing books and articles, and, with the publicity they created, selling Aqua-Lungs. Boeuf said the movies, books, and articles—no matter how successful—wouldn’t pay for the operation and maintenance of a 130-foot ship and its crew. He suggested that Cousteau form a nonprofit corporation that would own the ship, manage expeditions, and receive the royalties from films, books, and articles. Most important, a nonprofit corporation could accept tax-deductible grants from individuals, science foundations, and private companies.
The first grant to Campagnes Océanographiques Françaises—French Oceanographic Expeditions—was Calypso itself, on the one-pound-a-year lease from Loel Guinness. The second was cash from the Cousteaus, who mortgaged their house in Sanary and sold some of Simone’s jewelry to begin refitting the ship. Since the first diving expedition to the Dalton wreck, Cousteau had known that he had a gift for enlisting collaborators and raising money, but he was startled at his own success in the first few months after he formed COF. Marseille industrialist Roger Gary, who had attached himself to Cousteau during the Dalton expedition, wrote a big check and persuaded his brother-in-law, the Marquis Armand de Turenne, to match it. Dumas pitched in some of his own money and talked friends into getting in on the ground floor of the world’s first private oceanographic research corporation.
Calypso came out of the shipyard in the summer of 1951. It still had the lines of a minesweeper, but beneath its sparkling coat of white paint it was a completely different ship. Below the waterline, Cousteau had added a bulbous bow with eight viewing ports for filming underwater that coincidentally increased Calypso’s speed by half a knot because the new shape created less resistance to water passing under the bow. There was room for one observer lying prone on a mattress in the bow, or two, Cousteau joked, if they were very close friends. Through the floor of the galley, he cut a hole through which divers could leave the ship from inside by climbing down a ladder inside a tube that extended through the bottom. The water rose in the tube only to the height of the normal waterline, and a non watertight door had to be closed over the outside of the tube only to streamline the hull.
On deck, Cousteau had installed a crow’s nest on a square aluminum scaffolding in front of the wheelhouse, which gave an observer an additional 20 feet of elevation. It had a full set of steering and power controls, and also held the radar and radio antennas at the highest point on the ship. Aft of the deckhouse was a towing winch for retrieving sampling cables, dredges, and baskets of artifacts on archaeological expeditions, and a light davit for launching and recovering dive tenders, compression chambers, and other equipment. On the top deck, behind the wheelhouse, was another davit for lowering and lifting an auxiliary motor launch.
Calypso’s interior compartments were laid out on four decks. The lowest was half the height of the other three, containing only tanks for fuel and water. Above it, the aft section of the next deck was taken up by twin eight-cylinder diesels, generators, a machine shop for servicing the engines, electrical busses and panels, and a large cargo hold. The front section of that deck contained a cold storage locker for supplies and scientific samples, berths for six people, dry storage lockers, and the anchor chain locker.
The next deck up was given over to the galley, a dining salon with banquettes around a single table that could seat most of the crew of twenty-two at the same time, a double cabin for Jacques and Simone Cousteau, Cousteau’s office, six two-berth cabins, toilets and showers, and a wine cellar. A shelter deck ran on the port and starboard sides from just under the wheelhouse to the open diving deck, onto which the staterooms in the middle of the ship opened directly through separate doors. The navigation bridge, chart room, a four-berth cabin, and the captain’s cabin topped the ship, behind which was a streamlined funnel. On the funnel were painted the green silhouettes of a swimming sea nymph and a dolphin. First sketched by painter Luc-Marie Bayl on a bar napkin, Cousteau and Simone chose it to be the insignia of Calypso and French Oceanographic Expeditions.
Cousteau made Calypso’s sea trials a celebration for some of the investors who had contributed time and money during the year of refitting. He retained a professional engineer, Octave Leandri, known as Titi, but the rest of his crew for the voyage to Corsica was distinctly amateur. Cousteau was the captain, Simone was in charge of stewardship, and their thirteen-year-old son Jean-Michel and eleven-year-old Philippe signed ship’s papers as cabin boys. Dumas was first mate. Roger Gary, his brother-
in-law, the Marquis de Turenne, and Pierre Malville, who owned a restaurant in Antibes, stood wheel watches. Jacques Ertaud, a young photographer, recorded the trip on film. All but Titi worked without pay.
Calypso performed perfectly during the 300-mile round trip between Antibes and Calvi, the northern harbor on the island of Corsica. Cousteau learned that his ship was extremely maneuverable, able to pivot in its own length by running one engine forward and one in reverse. They did no scuba diving during the sea trials, but everyone took a plunge into the warm Mediterranean off Corsica, easily climbing back aboard using a swim step on Calypso’s stern and a short ladder to the aft deck. The weather was typical of midsummer, warm and sunny with light winds, but it was obvious to Cousteau that his ship was sea kindly. The heavily timbered hull seemed to cling to the surface and comfortably rode the slight swells that rose in the gentle afternoon breeze. The radar and sonar, extravagances on which Cousteau had insisted because they were the most modern tools for navigation and studying the seafloor, worked fine, though learning to use them was going to take time.
As Cousteau prepared for his first expedition in the autumn of 1951, his elation about finally taking Calypso to sea was dashed by the news that his mother had died. Cousteau had spent very little time with her since the war. She accompanied Daniel to Sanary only a few times, choosing instead to stay closer to PAC, who was serving his life sentence for collaboration at a prison near Paris. On one of her regular trips to see him, she had a stroke that killed her. JYC, Daddy, and the rest of the family except for PAC went to St.-André-de-Cubzac and buried Elizabeth in the plot they had reserved for the Cousteau tomb years earlier. A week later, Cousteau took Calypso to sea on their first expedition together.
11
IL FAUT ALLER VOIR
COUSTEAU CHERISHED THE CAMARADERIE that emerged aboard Calypso as it steamed away from France, headed for the Red Sea. He was the commander of the expedition, but he hired former navy chief boatswain and champion offshore sailboat racer François Saout to run the ship as its captain. The rest of the hired crew were René Montupet, engineer Octave Leandri, first mate Jean Beltran from the Undersea Research Group, former navy cook Fernand Hanen, and photographers Jacques Ertaud and Jean de Wouters d’Oplinter. Dumas was aboard to supervise the diving with Cousteau. Simone Cousteau assumed the roles of chief steward and assistant to the ship’s doctor, Jean-Loup Nivelleau de la Brunnière Veron.
“Many of those who came to us were sensitive young men who have not found happiness or peace leading an ordinary life,” Cousteau said of his crew. “That makes them valuable to us. I cannot help thinking that the men of Calypso resemble, in many ways, those of Jules Verne’s Nautilus—men who have been wounded by life on land, and who thereafter put their trust in the sea.”
On the first day out of Toulon, it was obvious to Cousteau that Calypso was going to be a good-humored ship. Because money was tight, the ship sailed with half a full complement of professional sailors, which meant that the scientists, divers, and filmmakers had to stand wheel watches and help with maintenance and cooking. Everyone was addressed as either Professeur or Docteur, unless that person had actually earned the title, in which case they were called Monsieur. During the party before sailing, someone had produced a small portrait of Napoleonic general Pierre Cambronne, famous for his reply to Wellington’s demand for surrender at Waterloo: “Merde.” By acclamation, the crew declared Cambronne the godfather of Calypso, and hung the portrait at the head of the table in the galley. There were no distinctions of rank aboard Calypso, no officer’s mess. Everyone ate around a single galley table that became the spiritual and social center of the ship. In his toast at dinner the night before departure, Cousteau closed with what he said had become his motto: Il faut aller voir. We must go and see for ourselves.
The mood aboard Calypso as she steamed south past Corsica was jubilant, more like a group of friends off on a cruise aboard a yacht. In keeping with French custom, everyone shook hands on first meeting each other in the morning, and again before turning in at night. On the second day Cousteau suggested that they limit the hand shaking to once in the morning. That afternoon, Cousteau encountered photographer Jacques Ertaud, who was reloading a film magazine with his hands in the black changing bag. Cousteau nodded to Ertaud, who reached up with his hands still in the bag to shake. Both men collapsed into laughter. Cousteau’s greeting reform movement ended, and it was back to hand shaking morning and evening.
No one aboard Calypso doubted that Cousteau was their leader, but
No one aboard Calypso doubted that Cousteau was their leader, but they also knew that he was always open to ideas other than his own. He seemed to function as a catalyst for innovation rather than as an innovator, far more interested in getting a job done than in doing it himself. Everyone around him recognized that his greatest talent was inspiring other people to help him realize his vision. Cousteau never surrendered authority; he was quick to criticize or dismiss harshly those who were lazy, disloyal, or incompetent; and he always seemed to know where he was going, even if he didn’t say so.
Cousteau holds up a Roman amphora from the waters off North Africa, 1953 (COURTESY MIT MUSEUM)
Cousteau knew exactly what questions his first voyage had to answer: Is Calypso fit for service on the open ocean for weeks at a time? How does a private oceanographic research venture survive financially? After spending hundreds of thousands of francs refitting his ship, the French Oceanographic Expeditions bank accounts were down to zero. Cousteau had carefully chosen the scientists for the voyage who would best demonstrate that Calypso and its scuba divers could perform a wide variety of underwater research that would attract future funding from corporations, magazines, television networks, and scientific institutions.
Cousteau also wanted to prove to oil companies that Calypso and his divers could explore the seafloor for likely petroleum and mineral deposits. He invited the legendary vulcanologist Haroun Tazief and Vladimir Nesteroff, who was an expert on interpreting electronic soundings. Jean Dupas, a former French paratrooper and the third member of the geologic group, was fluent in Arabic. The hydrologic team, charged with examining the chemistry and conditions of the water itself, consisted of Dr. Claude-Francis Boeuf, Bernard Callame, and the second woman aboard, Jacqueline Zang. Marine biologist Pierre Drach, a professor at the Sorbonne; Gustave Cherbonnier, who studied mollusks; coral reef expert André Guilcher; and Claude Levy, a laboratory technician, completed the scientific party. The mission of the voyage was to locate oil, gas, and mineral resources, but Cousteau wanted scientists with him to add credibility to what he found.
On the third night out of Toulon, Calypso was steaming over the deepest part of the Mediterranean—the 16,500-foot Matapan Trench—when a gale roared in from the cooling deserts to the south. In an hour, the seas built to 20 feet. There was no chance for sleep, so everyone crowded into the galley and wheelhouse, keeping their spirits up together. The only thing to do was keep the bow into the wind and, at all costs, never allow the ship to fall broadside to the towering waves.
Saout and Cousteau were both in the wheelhouse when Montupet telephoned from the engine room to say that the fuel filters and lines were clogging. The first real weather Calypso had encountered since refitting was shaking dirt and rust loose in the fuel tanks. They would lose both engines unless he shut them down one at a time to clear the filters and line. Saout and Cousteau agreed. A minute later, they felt the first engine go silent. Calypso instantly became far more difficult to steer with the thrust coming from only one propeller. Cousteau had no idea how much his ship could take. He was worried that the observation tube might not be strong enough to withstand the forces of the bow rising out of the water and slamming back into it. Worse, if the second engine quit before the first was running again Calypso would swing sideways. How much of a broaching angle could it take and still recover? Cousteau shouted to Saout to round up as many men as he needed to rig up an emergency sea anchor. If both engines stopped,
the anchor would be their only hope for holding the bow into the wind.
On the wildly pitching deck, Saout, Dumas, Beltran, and two of the scientists, Cherbonnier and Nesteroff, were struggling to build a sea anchor from a rubber life raft when the second engine stopped. At the helm on the bridge, Cousteau was helpless as Calypso’s bow fell off the wind and his ship slid sideways into the trough. Over the shriek of the wind and the clattering of everything on the ship that was not tied down, Cousteau screamed, “Hang on hard!” as Calypso rolled 45 degrees to starboard. For endless seconds, the ship lay trembling on its side with water flooding over the rail. Everyone prepared to go into the sea. Incredibly, Calypso shook off the water and bobbed upright. Another big wave slammed it back down, then another. Each time she recovered. Cousteau felt the blessed vibration of at least one engine starting. He swung the bow back into the wind, set a course for the lee of the island of Crete, and yelled back to Saout, “She can take it!”
After its harrowing beginning, Cousteau’s first expedition to the Red Sea with Calypso was a thirty-eight-day triumph. The geologists found evidence of oil-bearing shale and volcanic mineral deposits using the echo sounders. Aqua-Lung divers systematically took samples from different layers of water down to 150 feet, giving the hydrologists glimpses into the complexity of seawater. Aided by divers with nets, spearguns, and explosives, the biologists caught and jugged hundreds of sea creatures, many of them new to science. Cherbonnier and Drach named three of them in honor of their ship, its captains, and the expedition commander: Calypseus, Saouti, and Cousteaui.
