Submarine

Before we had to board our ship to Ireland, we had time to visit the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, which is situated next to Europe’s last remaining Art Deco Transatlantic Maritime Station, where travellers would have arrived by train, to continue their journey by ship, for example the Queen Mary, which first docked in Cherbourg in 1937.

But we came primarily to board the “Le Redoutable” – a 128-meter-long, giant submarine! This first French nuclear submarine and flagship of the French Navy was commissioned in 1971, and can be visited now in Cherbourg.

Watch the video – made with VIYOUU!

 It was designed not to dive to extreme depths, but to be as quiet as possible, an essential asset for its mission. Its special steel hull allows it to withstand the harsh conditions of the deep sea. Powered by a pressurized water nuclear reactor, it could navigate submerged for several months at a speed of 25 knots.

Its armament, consisting of 16 nuclear ballistic missiles (M1, M2, M20), made it a pillar of French nuclear deterrence in 1967. The Redoutable incorporated cutting-edge acoustic innovations to evade detection. On board, a crew of 135 people carried out missions ranging from surveillance to strategic strikes.

The submariners lived in very confined space underwater. We saw their small cabins, bunk beds, and shared living area. Gastronomy on board was very important to keep the spirits up, therefore the best cooks in the French Navy served aboard the Redoutable.

Le Redoutable had a 20-year duty history, with 51 patrols of 70 days each, totalling an estimated 90,000 hours of diving and 1.27 million kilometres of distance, the equivalent of travelling 32 times around the Earth.

In 1991, it was finally decommissioned, the nuclear reactor was removed, and a dock was built to exhibit the submarine at Cherbourg, where all the French submarines are being built.

Torpedo

We also visited the aquarium, and the exhibition about the Titanic, which took us in total nearly 3 hours, as there was so much to see.

Tomorrow we will be on our way to Ireland – more soon!

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