Yacht name: Hirondelle II
Length: 269 ft • 82 m
Year: 1911
Builder: FCM, La Seyne, Toulon
Size: 1650 tonnes
Photo location: Monaco
Power: 2200 hp twin screw
Speed: 15 knots
Owner: Prince Albert I, Albert Grimaldi of Monaco (1848 - 1922)

Hirondelle II was Albert's fourth and final explorer ship which he had built in 1911.
His fastest, largest ship, it was even equipped with wireless telegraph.
Whenever the Prince spent time in Monaco during WWI he stayed on board the yacht in the harbour!
After the war the ship stayed in Monaco harbour to his death in 1922.
A year later she sailed to England to be sold. She passed into American hands, spent many years berthed in New York, then Rhode Island.
She ended her days ingloriously as a pontoon in the Panama canal!

Prince Albert was something of a pioneer in deep-sea sonic measurements and also pulled up a great number of wierd animals from the depths.
Many a ghostly specimen can still be found preserved in yellowing formaldehyde-filled specimen jars in the Oceanographic Museum, which he founded in 1906.


Photo credit: By kind permission of NOAA Rice Library of the NOAA Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
Image ID: ship4641, NOAA Ship Collection
The HIRONDELLE II. Plate III, figure 13. In: "Results of the Scientific Campaigns of the Prince of Monaco." Vol. 84.