Forty roses to commemorate Pourquoi pas? Iceland shipwreck
Photo: Iceland Monitor/Rax
Forty roses were thrown into the sea at Straumfjörður, West Iceland, in a ceremony held yesterday to commemorate the forty sailors who drowned when their ship sank there eighty years ago today.
The French research ship Pourquoi pas? sank on 16 September 1936 after being caught in a violent cyclonic storm. The shipped has stopped to refuel in Iceland on its voyage from Greenland back to France and had just left Iceland when the storm struck.
Forty of the crew died that day, while just one survived.
French descendants of the expedition leader Jean-Baptiste Charcot, crew from the new Pourquoi pas? ship, and members of the local search and rescue team were present at the ceremony.
A photo of the doomed ship the day before it sank. Photo: Helgi Hafliðason
