Wreck of the Nahoon in the Bay of Fort de France.

After the immersion of Nahoon in 1993, RFO Martinique, the local television channel, devoted several subjects to it.

The divers interviewed, ignorant of the history of the boat, improvised a bit, “you are going to dive on a three mast boats, it has sailed on all the seas of the world…”.

If anyone was able to set the record straight, it was us, Babette and me.

Babette, my wife, was there partner of Henry Wakelam for six years. Henry spent seven years transforming the wreck of the Caribbean into three masts with no other means than his courage, determination and his “resourcefulness” genius. The boat, renamed Nahoon, in seaworthy condition, they weighed anchor and went down to Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, where Valentine was born.

For my part, a former skipper, I had started researching the origin of the Nahoon so that Valentine would know the history of the boat on which she took her first steps and spent her early years. The work was far from done but far enough advanced to talk about it.

In short, one day we contact RFO to offer to tell them the story of the Nahoon. In June 1998, the crew of “Manman Dlo”, a program devoted to the sea, arrived home. Interviews, shots and direction Pointe de la Baleine, we are invited to dive on the Nahoon, a great first for Babette.

Fourteen years of research later, I suggest you get to know better this boat that does not want to die in a book that I have just published on behalf of the author.

You can read an extract: http://autrebord.pagesperso-orange.fr/nahoon/index.html

John Troupel