Saluting the Sister Ship

We are in March 1949, on deck of the Albertville. The captain’s voice, laced with feedback, sweeps across the windswept decks : “Get ready to salute our sister ship the Gouverneur Galopin. She will pass port-side”. We must be somewhere midway through the trip, then. The Azores and Tenerife. Land ahoy! Soon. We cannot see it, but Mauritania has to be on our right. Or starboard, as the mariners insist on calling it. A proud medieval tradition, they keep telling us each time. The other side, left, is port-side. Yeah, … no, just the sea that way at the moment. We are guests of the Sea. And of the sailors. Their ship, their world, their traditions. 

People shake off the afternoon siesta, some grab their camera. François has already chosen his spot to get his longest shot yet. The preparation, angle, light is meticulously chosen. As always. Other passengers often assist him willingly to clear crowds, get children to look the right way, or theatrically wave as the moment dictates. A director of silent movies. This one, it will be a pure memory. Like he will document any ship he meets. In the movie, the frames are steady, the boat sway and heave, the likely passenger hustle and bustle kept to a minimum. He did it in 1921, 1929, 1937. Today he is performing for his daughters. He records the story. 

At the captain’s signal, a whistle is blown somewhere up there. A line of signal flags dramatically rises in the air, hoisted to greet the passing ship. The sister ship parades slowly enough for everyone to have time to wave energetically, portside. It is now gone.

François stops recording; the moment can now be replayed forever. Magic we take for granted. Magic nevertheless. 

For as long as the 8mm film survives, we would meet the Gouverneur Galopin on the high seas – a film clip taken on board the Albertville. And yet, no one in the room could say what that ship was, or why it was one of the longest sequence recorded. Not the assembly that sat in the living room in Claviers, quietly puffing away, not the projectionist for the day, all of his senses strained on making sure that neither machine nor film would catch fire on a sweaty 30C evening. 

Through the clicketing drone of the projector, you could imagine the ships bellowing, the individual sound of their foghorn, their voice. 

Saluting the sister ship. No one could remember then, or really cared, to be honest, if they had waved at the ship making their way to Congo. Maybe it had been a fun tradition. Or a significant event, somehow. Or just something, anything, that had kept busy on these long days. Why else would it have been even recorded in pictures and movies? Maybe my grandfather was just a ship spotter… or my grandmother really wanted a record of everything they did. Or they were at their wit’s end to entertain 3 kids for weeks on a wooden deck. Or all of that. 

Why care anyway. 

It was recorded. How much of travelling is exactly that? 

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👉All 8mm footage has now been digitalized and will be posted on my social media. 

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