Comte de Smet de Naeyer Sinks
The early twentieth century saw the rise of training ships, purpose-built vessels for educating a new generation of sailors in the diminishing art of square-rigged seamanship. Among them was the Belgian four-masted bark Comte de Smet de Naeyer, an iron-hulled ship launched at Greenock, Scotland in October 1904 for the Association Maritime Belge. She was troubled from the start: during fitting out she capsized unexpectedly in dock, and Belgian maritime experts raised concerns about her seaworthiness before she ever put to sea.
On April 19, 1906, those fears proved tragically justified. Sailing off Ushant, the Comte de Smet de Naeyer sprang a leak and sank, taking 32 of her 54 crew with her, among them eighteen cadets on their first voyage. The disaster ended the short career of a ship that had been afloat barely two years.
The Comte de Smet de Naeyer is remembered in the capstan shanty Madeleine, a bawdy French song that was the ship’s signature tune. The shanty reached Stan Hugill through Commandant LeMaître of her sister training bark L’Avenir, preserving a small piece of the lost ship’s musical life.