Last modified: 2008-09-06 by ivan sache
Keywords: pecheries de l'ocean | letter: p (blue) | letter: o (red) |
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![[Pecheries de l'Ocean houseflag]](../images/f/fr~hfpoc.gif)
House flag of Pêcheries de l'Océan - Image by Ivan Sache, 10 April 2008
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Pêcheries de l'Océan was a French fishing company, based in Arcachon.
The fishing port of Arcachon was in the past one of the most innovative
ones in France. The port saw in 1837 the first steam trawler in the world.
There were three main fishing companies in Arcachon at the end of the
XIXth century, the Pêcheries de l'Océan, founded in 1866, the Pêcheries Cameleyre Frères and the Société Nouvelle des Pêcheries à Vapeur, both founded a few years later. These companies operated steam trawlers, which needed coal, not available locally. Therefore, a regular cargo line was opened between Arcachon and England: the ships left Arcachon with a cargo of pine trunks, used as pillars in the English coal mines, and came back with a cargo of coal. The pines came from the
neighbouring forest of Landes.
Pêcheries de l'Océan is listed in Lloyd's book of house flags and funnels of the principal steamship lines of the world and the house flags of various lines of sailing vessels, published at Lloyd's Royal Exchange. London. E.C. (1912) [llo12], also available online thanks to the Mystic Seaport Foundation, #684, p. 89, as the Société immobilière du Moulleau et
des Pêcheries de l'Océan. Le Moulleau is the westernmost borough of the town of Arcachon, otherwise made of the four summer, autumn,winter and spring "towns" (indeed boroughs).
Once a small fisher's hamlet with a chapel built by Dominicans monk,
Le Moulleau experienced a limited "urban" increase in the 1860. From
1897 onwards, the Société immobilière du Moulleau (Moulleau Real Estate Company), with the Mayor of Arcachon, James Veryrier-
Montagnères, as a main shareholder, sold big plots on which wealthy
villas and a brand new hotel were built. Le Moulleau became a favoured
place for aristocrats, who had "to be seen" in Le Moulleau.
According to René Pérotin (Le chalutage à vapeur à Arcachon, 1911), the Pêcheries de l'Océan were founded in 1865 by H. Johnston and operated the first steam trawler ever, the Cormoran. The operation of steam trawlers required huge quantities of coals, which was stored on old sailing boats. Pêcheries de l'Océan used for that purpose the three-master Jeanne-d'Arc from 1931 to 1948.
Sources:
Ivan Sache, 10 March 2008
The house flag of Pêcheries de l'Océan, as shown in Lloyd's book of house flags and funnels of the principal steamship lines of the world and the house flags of various lines of sailing vessels (op. cit.), is white with a red (top and left sides) and blue (right and bottom sides) border and the letters "P." (blue) and "O." (red) in the middle.
Ivan Sache, 10 March 2008