FOURAS, France — With champagne, fireworks and a presidential blessing, a replica of the frigate once used to bring French troops and funds to American revolutionaries set sail for Boston.
Saturday night’s celebratory sendoff for the $27 million Hermione seeks to retrace the 213-foot frigate’s trans-Atlantic journey in 1780, when its namesake under Marquis de Lafayette’s command helped to lay the foundation of French-American relations.
Lafayette persuaded French King Louis XVI to provide military and financial support to George Washington’s troops. Lafayette set sail March 21, 1780, arriving 38 days later in Boston, and played an important role in the revolutionaries’ defeat of Britain.
The ship is the fruit of nearly two decades of brainstorming, fundraising and toil. Using captains’ logs and manuscripts from the era, maritime experts and historians ensured that workers used the same construction materials and methods as those used to build the original.
Sail-makers sewed eyelets by hand on the 2,600 square yards of linen sails. Engineers replicated the pulley system. The vessel even was built in the same shipyard, in Rochefort in southwest France.
“It has been a very long project,” said Miles Young, president of the Friends of Hermione-Lafayette in America. “You don’t create an 18th century warship very easily these days. It took enormous efforts to find enough oak trees naturally shaped so they could create the helm.”
Volunteer crew members sailed the frigate, with “Hermione” carved across its stern, across the Atlantic.