Le Français

Her Danish name, Kaskelot, means cachalot. She was built like a Greenland whaling vessel by J. Ring Andersen for the Royal Greenland Trading Company.

She carried goods between settlements in Greenland and the Faroe Islands and is equipped with extremely strong ice timbers and ironwork. During the 1960s she worked as a support vessel for the fisheries in the Faroes.

In 1983 Clearwater Holdings Ltd. of Jersey bought her and had her rebuilt at Troense as a polar sailing vessel for a Robert F. Scott expedition.

In 1988 she was sold to England for various purposes — films, harbour festivals, maritime events and exhibitions — operated by Square Sail Services. She has appeared in many films and series: The Last Place on Earth (1985), Revolution (1985), Return to Treasure Island (1986), The Three Musketeers (1993), Cutthroat Island (1995), Swept from the Sea (1997), A Respectable Trade (1998), David Copperfield (1999), Longitude (2000), Shackleton (2002) and Amazing Grace (2006), and she is also used for sail training.

She attended the old-timer festivals at Douarnenez from 1988 and the windjammer gathering at Rouen in 1994.

In 2012 there was some rumour that she should be converted back into a cargo ship. New owners bought her in 2013 and from April to December that year she was restored and repaired at Tommi Nielsen's yard in Gloucester, her figurehead being removed; from 2014 she was available for charter, filming or purchase.

In 2018 Frédéric Lescure of the France Armement company bought her, registered her at Saint-Malo and renamed her Le Français in memory of the ship of the French physician and polar explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867–1936).