Calypso (ship)

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Calypso is the name of a ship that Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the most important researchers in oceanography, equipped as a mobile laboratory for field research.

Calypso at La Rochelle.

Calypso was originally a wooden-hulled minesweeper built for the British Royal Navy by the Ballard Marine Railway Company of Seattle, Washington, USA. She was a BYMS (British Yard Minesweeper) Mark 1 Class Motor Minesweeper, laid down on 12 August 1941 with the yard designation BYMS-26 and launched on 21 March 1942. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in February 1943 as HMS J-826 and assigned to active service in the Mediterranean Sea, reclassified as BYMS-2026 in 1944, laid up at Malta and finally struck from the Naval Register in 1947.

After World War II she became a ferry between Malta and the island of Gozo, and was renamed after the nymph Calypso, whose island of Ogygia was mythically associated with Gozo.

The Irish millionaire and former MP Thomas Loel Guinness bought Calypso in 1950 and leased her to Cousteau for a symbolic one franc a year. Cousteau restructured and transformed her into an expedition vessel and support base for diving, filming and oceanographic research.

Calypso carried advanced equipment, including one- and two-person mini submarines developed by Cousteau, diving saucers, and underwater scooters. The ship was also fitted with a see-through "nose", an observation chamber three metres below the waterline, and was modified to house scientific equipment and a helicopter pad.

Calypso at La Rochelle.

A barge accidentally rammed Calypso and sank her in the port of Singapore in 1996. She was raised, and towed to France. After a time in the port of Marsailles, she was towed to the basin of the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle in 1998, where she was intended to be an exhibit. A long series of legal and other delays kept any restoration work from beginning. At one time it was rumoured that Calypso had been sold to Carnival Cruise Lines for the symbolic sum of one Euro. Carnival stated that they intend to give the vessel a 1.3 million dollar restoration, and then likely moor her in the Bahamas as a museum ship. See this cyber diver news page for details of this plan and developments. As of the end of 2006, most of the equipment has been removed from her upper decks, and she sits open to the elements. It is unclear as to what will become of this historic vessel.

[edit] The Calypso in popular culture

John Denver wrote a 1975 hit song "Calypso" as a tribute to Calypso and her crew. Jean Michel Jarre wrote a four-part composition in tribute to the ship, called Waiting for Cousteau (1990).

GWAR wrote a song entitled Je M'Appelle J.Cousteau, which was featured on their album Hell-O, originally released in 1988. It's not entirely clear whether this song is in tribute or slander, but the song is entirely about Jacques Cousteau and his ship the Calypso.

Bill Murray starred in a movie parody of Jacques Cousteau's life called The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In the movie Zissou travels the seas in a ship called the Belafonte. This is an oblique reference to Jacques Cousteau's ship Calypso. Harry Belafonte is a noted Jamaican musician who played calypso music on an album called Calypso.