Par Frederic Patard
Published on 31 Jul 22 at 19:42
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We are in 1928, and the Roaring Twenties are in their firmament. Josephine Baker triumphs at Pariswe dance, we sing, we laugh…, everything to forget the horrors of the Great War and plunge without restraint into a new world.
It is in this carefree atmosphere that countless projects take shape, permitted by the new technological advancements of the time, and in particular l’aviationwhich is living its golden age.
Cherbourg – New York at 40 knots!
In this context, a certain Adrien Rémy (born in Cherbourg in 1892, son of a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Marine Infantry), who calls himself an engineer, builds an “oceanoglisseur”, an unsinkable catamaran. Two 21-meter floats, a spacious cabin that houses the cockpit, a kitchen, a direction finding station, you can even hang a few hammocks!
–For the moment, it is a prototype, but Adrien Rémy has already planned to build a larger device, capable of transporting 75 passengers at 40 knots, thanks to turbocharged engines and aerial propellers. Objective: to connect Cherbourg to New York twice as fast as the fastest transatlantic! And this “oceanoglider” would take the beautiful name of City-of-Cherbourg.
Waiting for the big one City-of-Cherbourgit is the small Nevertheless (the official name of the prototype) which is launched on May 20, 1928, bleach wharf in Paris. In this happy circumstance, we see Adrien Rémy climb on one of the floats of his machine and start an incendiary speech against the government. Because according to him, certain high-ranking personalities would have done everything to prevent the oceanoglider from taking shape. Hence its name Nevertheless…
Our Cherbourgeois, who has a lot of ideas, then hoists the red flag on his machine, then invites one of the site workers to join him to start a vibrant Internationale.
A first failure in 1916
Adrien Rémy was already talked about in Cherbourg in 1916, when he obtained authorization from the municipality to set up a seaplane assembly workshop in front of the Church of the Trinity, and authorization from the maritime prefecture to try these same seaplanes in the big harbour. His prototype, a “glisavion”, completed in the spring of 1917, will never fly (it floats, but we don’t know if it can fly). Because at the same time, the Maritime Aeronautical Center of Cherbourg was officially created, bringing together around thirty military seaplanes. From then on, Adrien Rémy’s project… fell through.
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An aquatic vaudeville
Anyway, the Nevertheless made satisfactory tests on the Seine. It remains to test the machine at sea. Adrien Rémy is at Rouen June 3, 1928, then to the harbor on the 6th. But on the 9th, its creditors disarmed the prototype, which found itself moored in the Tancarville canal. On the 12th, we find him at Trouvilleon the other side of the estuary: would our inventor have paid his debts?
In reality, it seems that he fled the English way to take refuge in Trouville. This is where part of the crew mutinied and tried to bring the Nevertheless to the harbor.
After a chase on the high seas, the ocean glider was finally brought back to Le Havre and again seized by creditors. Failing to sail on Atlanticthe Nevertheless swim in the middle of vaudeville!
cocaine
But the adventures of Adrien Rémy and his prototype are still far from over. To Deauvillethem gendarmes find two lifejackets from the Neverthelessin which is concealed cocaine. Remy is condemned to 6 months in jailthen we lose track afterwards…
As for the ocean glider, it was put up for sale to pay off its inventor’s debts and bought back for 7,000 francs in February 1929 by a mechanic from Le Havre. In 1935, the machine resurfaced, still in Le Havre, where a certain Captain Dial bought it to establish a maritime link between Le Havre and Trouville. The new name of the hovercraft: the awesome…
> > > With the aerocar, Cherbourg an hour and a half from Paris!
In 1924, the inventor Francis Laur developed the project of an “aerocar”, an electric monorail with propellers suspended from gantries and circulating at very high speed (250 km/h). Each wagon (13 meters long and made of duralumin, therefore very light) can carry between 60 and 100 passengers.
Laur’s project is seriously studied by the city council of paris and the general council of the Seinewho decide to create a test-line between the Chapel door et St Denisa little more than 3 kilometers.
If the tests are conclusive, it is then planned to equip Paris and its suburbs with 8 lines of aerocars… and also to create long-distance lines throughout France.
–“Incredible services”
We would first equip the lines linking Paris to the grands ports, which would allow passengers crossing the Channel or the Atlantic to save precious time. With Lille and Le Havre, Cherbourg is tipped to become a hub for the aerocar!
“Can you imagine the incredible services that such a transport tool would render to the transatlantic stopovers of Cherbourg”, exclaims the journal local Cherbourg-Eclair.
Because at the time, the fastest “normal” train journey between Cherbourg and Paris was 5 h 45. At 250 km/h, the aerocar would put Cherbourg an hour and a half from Paris!
“Fast Paris – New York” toys
Unfortunately, Francis Laur’s aerocar never saw the light of day, neither in Paris suburbs, or between Cherbourg and Paris. Technical, financial reasons? We do not know.
But by poking around Internet, there are still many press articles of the time talking about this crazy project. There was even toys reproducing Laur’s idea, stamped “fast Paris – New York”… via Cherbourg.
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