FRENCH-US/LAFAYETTE FRIGATE To celebrate U.S. independence from Britain, a replica French warship docks in New York City

Record ID: 148764

  • Title: FRENCH-US/LAFAYETTE FRIGATE To celebrate U.S. independence from Britain, a replica French warship docks in New York City
  • Date: 1st July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF L'HERMIONE CREW SINGING
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6WNIDGTVLA34EI3T4IGP7A4C7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A replica of the warship that carried France's Marquis de Lafayette to help American colonists in their war of independence docked in New York City on Wednesday (July 1).
    L'Hermione (Hair-me-OWN) is symbolic of a historic moment that binds the two nations, say the events organizers.
    Lafayette crossed the Atlantic on the original Hermione in 1780 to tell his friend George Washington, commander of the American insurgents against British imperial rule, that France was sending a strong military force to help them.
    On Wednesday the replica fired its cannons as it sailed into New York Harbor.
    L'Hermione was constructed using almost entirely 18th Century ship-building techniques. 2,000 oak trees were used for the hull. The ropes were made from hemp and the sails are linen.
    She had been under construction since 1997 and cost $27 million (USD) to build.
    The ship's first stop in the United States was in Yorktown, Virginia, where Lafayette and his forces played a critical part in a decisive battle against the British.
    "This ship has sailed from Rochfort in France. It was constructed in Rochfort in France, an exact replica. It sailed on a southerly route, more southerly than Lafayette sailed on when he came in 1779, passed the Canaries and it arrived in Yorktown, Virginia. It's moved up the coast, passed by Washington, DC and now it's in the Big Apple and will move to Boston, then out to Canada," said Miles Young, the president of The Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America.
    The ship has also visited other key locations in the American Revolution, including Annapolis, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
    Young stressed L'Hermione's importance to U.S. history.
    "It's highly significant. Because I would argue that without the ship, there wouldn't have been independence. This ship carried Lafayette and the message from the French government that they would send a full-scale army and give naval support to the Revolutionary Army which was in a terrible situation in New Jersey at that time. So it was a kind of tipping point in history. So thanks to this ship there is independence."
    Upon arriving in New York, the ship's 80-member crew, dressed in period costume, serenaded onlookers with songs of friendship.
    L'Hermione's Captain Yann Cariou, a 30-year veteran of the French Navy, said the voyage was smooth sailing.
    "It took us 37 days sailing and 44 days from the dock from which our ship left to Virginia. It was a great voyage, a good season of course. We took the tradewinds."
    L'Hermione will stay in New York during the Fourth of July Independence Day celebrations. On the fourth, the ship will lead nearly 100 ships past the Statue of Liberty in a patriotic salute in the "People's Parade of Ships".
    "To be here for the Fourth of July, the Day of Independence, is a strong symbol, since obviously, it marks the completion of the voyage of 1780, because the goal of the Hermione was to bring independence to this country. And that is exactly what the Hermione did, along with Lafayette," said Captain Cariou.
    Lafayette - whose full name was Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert de Motier de Lafayette - was an aristocrat who persuaded King Louis XVI into sending military help to Washington's men. Lafayette also maintained a civic role after the king and much of the French nobility had been executed in France's own revolution, which began in 1789, less than a decade after his voyage.
    The two countries sealed their friendship almost a century after Lafayette's voyage with the 1876 inauguration of the Statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York Harbor, a gift from the French people to commemorate the centenary of the Declaration of Independence.
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