French ship Pourquoi Pas? (2005)

	Pourquoi Pas ? in Brest after her delivery
History
France
Namesake	Pourquoi Pas ? IV
Launched	14 October 2004
Identification	IMO number: 9285548; MMSI number: 228207600; Callsign: FMCY;
Status	Active as of 2018
General characteristics
Class and type	research vessel
Displacement	6600 tonnes
Length	107 m (351 ft)
Beam	20 m (66 ft)
Draught	6.9 m (23 ft)
Propulsion	Diesel-electric with a Class II dynamic positioning system.
Speed	14.5 knots (26.9 km/h; 16.7 mph)
Endurance	64 days at 11 knots
Boats & landing ; craft carried	ROV
Capacity	1000 m² laboratory, 40 scientists
Complement	18 to 33 men
Sensors and ; processing systems	Dual multibeam sonars capable of mapping seafloor up to 6000 metre depth with a swath width of up to 20 km; 2 Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) capable of measuring currents at depth of up to 1000 metres; Sub-bottom profiler for study of the upper layers of seafloor sediment;

Pourquoi Pas ? (English: Why Not?) is a research vessel built in Saint-Nazaire, France by Alstom Marine for IFREMER and the French Navy. She is currently primarily used by SHOM (Service hydrographique et océanographique de la Marine). She was ordered in December 2002 and completed in July 2005. The 66 million euro cost was financed by IFREMER (55%) and the French Navy (45%). She is named after explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot's famous ship. A space is required immediately before a question mark in French orthography, and accordingly, in French Pourquoi Pas ? is the correct way to write the name.

Pourquoi Pas ? is used 150 days per year by the French Navy and 180 days per year by IFREMER. She was designed for hydrography, geoscience, and physical, chemical, and biological oceanography, as well as to launch small submarines such as the crewed submersible Nautile and the ROV Victor 6000.

Notably, Pourquoi Pas ? has been used for the 2007 deployment and connection operations for the ANTARES neutrino telescope.

In 2008, Pourquoi Pas ? was used for the initial testing and operations of the PERISCOP, a pressurized deep sea fish recovery device.

In June 2009 she assisted in the recovery of Air France Flight 447.

The ROV aboard the Pourquoi-pas?

External links

(in French) Pourquoi-Pas ? site at IFREMER
(in French) Netmarine
BBC article about the PERISCOP

This article was translated from the original article from the French Wikipedia, in 2006.

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