A hybrid and eco-designed “Captain Pesqui”, a new educational boat for the Lycée de la Mer de Sète

Le lycée Paul Bousquet a pris possession ce lundi 22 janvier de son nouveau navire pédagogique innovant Midi Libre – NICOLAS ZARROUK

Le lycée Paul Bousquet a pris possession ce lundi 22 janvier de son nouveau navire pédagogique innovant.

It is an innovative educational ship which set sail this Monday January 22 in the morning from Saint-Cyprien. The building of around ten meters has set sail for Sète and the Richelieu basin. In a few weeks he will join the Lycée de la Mer Paul Bousquet, to take up service to replace a 35-year-old boat. And the Sète establishment has launched quite a challenge at the Martinez shipyard.

"The sectors exist and we have the skills"

"We needed a boat which corresponded to the training needs of our students, adapted to educational teaching, available relatively quickly but above all, which met the environmental challenges of our sectors", specifies the director of the establishment, Sylvain Pelegrin. Captain Pesqui – that's his name – has therefore been designed in an eco-responsible way from its construction near Saint-Cyprien to its future dismantling, including its daily use.

Named in homage to the commander of “Gouverneur Général Lépine”

THE HISTORY. Maritime education in Sète took place for a long time on the Gouverneur Général Lépine, then renamed Paul Bousquet. A floating classroom for the mousse school, which built its legend before its arrival in Sète. Assigned to the transport of passengers and goods between Marseille, Algeria and Tunisia at the start of the Second World War, and recalled by the Vichy government, the GGLépine will flee to continue the fight, carry out secret missions, evacuate civilians… The name of his commander ? Captain Pesqui! The ship was even decorated with the Croix de Guerre, and made its last voyage between Marseille and Sète in 1950, before being deconstructed 26 years later.

Starting with its hybrid propulsion, which combines an electric system with the traditional diesel engine. "This is a first for our construction site, but we have since been consulted regularly on the possibilities of hybrid propulsion. This is the big trend, but mainly on passenger transport boats , explains Dominique Martinez, manager of the family shipbuilding company. And on fishing boats ? "To my knowledge, this does not exist. But it would be possible with greater electrical power. Because the configuration we have here mainly allows entering and leaving the port, or sailing at low speed, up to 6 knots."

"We remain ambitious for our students"

The structure of the new Lycée de la Mer ship does not escape this logic either. Its polyester shell has been worked with a composite resulting in part from the recycling of plastic bottles. The wheelhouse part, for its part, was made of natural linen fiber. "We implemented a certain number of innovations on this public service order. This is an opportunity to show that the sectors exist and that we are already capable of producing this type of boat that consumes less energy and is more respectful of the environment."< /em>