It should at first be noted that the Hermione is a sailboat and will always remain so. There is no question of crossing the Atlantic on the engine!

This being said, we are in the 21^st century and the crew on board the Hermione will not live the same life, nor take the same risks as in the 18^th century.

Many reasons pushed us to installing engines on the Hermione: to be a little more independent when entering or leaving a port, in order to be able to escape from a dangerous weather situation, to meet the planned commitments to reach the stopover locations or in order to recover a man overboard.

In order to minimize the damage to the hull and to prevent the installation of classical propeller shafts at the rear of the ship (which would have required major work), we chose to install "PODs". These are omnidirectional thrusters, placed on the side of the hull, that damage the oak structure of the ship only minimally.

The PODs have a capacity of 300 kW, each about 400 horsepower, and weigh 2.5 tons. Outside the hull, only the propeller of 1 m (3 ft) diameter is visible. Within the frigate, two hydraulic engines can turn the PODs over a full 360 degrees and an electric engine drives the propellers.

The engines inside the frigate have not yet been installed. They will be placed at the last moment to avoid damaging them.

This type of motorization allows significant space savings and reduces the contemporary footprint on the ship. In addition, the fact that the POD propellers can be rotated over 360 degrees, will allow better handling during maneuvers.

This work was carried out by a collaboration between the company Asselin who made the engine flanges, the manufacturer Masson Marine in charge of the production of the PODs and the company AMP, that dealt with the engine assembly.

Check out the installation of the starboard POD in this movie: click here.