Florence Gives French Paper On English Shipwrecks

Searching For Shipwrecks With Passion!

One of ADMAT's French members, Florence Prudhomme, was asked to give a paper on our work and her work in the English archives. This is her report:

The French castle in Vincennes is the place where most maritime historic archives can be found and they kindly authorised a special week-end on the 26th and 27th of November 2005 with 2 days fully dedicated to the study of modern shipwrecks.

I was kindly invited by the organizers “Comité départemental de l’Oise” to talk about two subjects, the British archives and the presentation of ADMAT and more precisely about our  project in St Kitts in the Caribbean.

The conference covered many areas of the research and in particular the work in the archives with the different resources available like le bureau Veritas, Loyd’s register, the description of the different categories of documentation (maps, drawings, reports, microfilm), even audio and videos (for modern shipwrecks) at the Fort d’Ivry and the way it is classified in the numerous files.

We were pleased to listen to other working groups presenting their latest discoveries such as the German submarines (U-boots) of the First World War sunk in the North of France, the archives of the French Navy, a movie about the German Ostmark aircraft boat and the use of an independent researcher in specific project as well as the use of the magnetometer

To conclude the French DRASSM, created  40 years ago, explained about its duties and its willingness  to cooperate with many research groups in order to develop and update an important DATA BASE on shipwrecks.

We will be happy to meet again in November 2006 with a new week-end dedicated to shipwrecks.

F. Prudhomme