The Ghost Ship, 2010
The last mission of French helicopter-carrier “Jeanne d’Arc” (2009-2010)
After forty-five years of sailing and after having travelled the equivalent of nine times the distance between the earth and the moon, the “Jeanne d’Arc” vessel went on its last half the globe journey between December 2009 and May 2010.
In the manner of a true floating embassy, this mythical helicopter-carrier was one of the last military steamboats to sail across the world’s oceans and seas. In the spirit of past major discoveries, the “Jeanne d’Arc” trained naval officers from France’s most prestigious navy school, Ecole Navale, in the art of sailing.
Fascinated by this legendary ship, I embarked as a photographer in order to document this journey, but also as a pilgrim paying homage to my father, who once was a navy officer on the “Jeanne”.
The crossing which took me from Hamburg to Brest and through which I shared the lives of 700 sailors, was unforgettable. During this moving journey, I would equally look out for the sparkling youth crossing the vessel’s decks and corridors, as I would look out for the ghosts of the vessel’s past which at night was haunting its den.
Like the red lights at night, illuminating the inside of the ship, I immersed myself inside this
vessel as one would inside a submarine. I was particularly impressed by the sophisticated machinery of this “Beast Within” burning daily hundreds of liters of fuel. As with the helmeted figures I would come across on the flight deck, and the fugitives forms silently sliding in the labyrinthine corridors of this sea monster.
The helicopters would take off both by night and day, buzzing in the sky above the agitated waters, like a soldier escaped from a giant beehive. Meanwhile the “pasha”, the last commanding officer of the “Jeanne”, poised atop a navigational bridge, would conscientiously monitor the activity of his faithful officer cadets.
Untiringly I was photographing this never-ending ballet of men and women constantly moving as if time would catch up and swallow them, as it shortly would do with the wreckage of this ship at the end of its course.
The vessel would slide on the waters like a phantom ship, and I would make the most of every second, trying to record in my memory and on my films the last instance of the once prestigious “Jeanne d’Arc”.
François Fontaine
—
Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
—
