Hermione Sails Again: A Celebration of French-American Relations

In 1997, a group of enthusiasts realized their dream as construction began on a full-size, fully operational replica of the French frigate Hermione. They hoped to recreate not only the ship, but its historical voyage to the United States, as Lafayette had done two centuries before during the American Revolution. Using original blueprints from Hermione’s sister ship La Concorde and the contributions of over three million donors, the project required 1200 tons of wood and thousands of hours of construction. Asselin, the woodworking company responsible for the construction of the vessel, posted photos of the building process here. You can see more photos here.

This animation shows how Rochefort’s dry dock technique worked. Developed in 1683 by Pierre Arnoul, this technique was how the original Hermione’s hull would have been worked on. Arnoul’s dry dock, and two others, still stand today at Rochefort.

The frigate was finally completed in 2011 and launched in 2012, and in 2013, masting took place and Hermione’s captain was selected. September 7, 2014 began Hermione’s sea trials.

In this photo, Hermione is flanked by her fans in modern boats as she leaves Rochefort for her first sea trial September 7, 2014.

Click here for a video of her departure.

The next landmark in Hermione’s story is her return voyage to the United States, expected to take place in April 2015. She will stop at ports in Yorktown, Mount Vernon, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston before her final stop in Castine, Maine on Bastille Day. She will then return to France.

Check out Hermione’s French website here and her English site here. Poitou-Charentes’ tourism site also has details on the ship’s historically accurate finishing touches, as well as events happening this year.

To learn more about other historical frigates and how they were built click here. Visit here to explore American revolutionary vessels that sailed when the original Hermione did. Notice that, by the late 1770s, many of the ships in the American fleet have French names or were even French themselves and only loaned to the Americans. Now that's cultural exchange!