Page 45 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW SPECIAL ISSUE 6

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 4 5

As a little boy, I dreamed of becoming an explorer, a real one, not like Tartarin de

Tarascon. When I was older, between the ages of nine and ten, I scaled back my perilous
plans and became a sailor. Two ships left their mark on my childhood: the “Sloughi”
which often docked at Le Légué and Tréguier to supply our ports with Algerian wines,
and the other ship, the “SS France”, but that's another story.

When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to climb aboard the “Sloughi” twice, a boat that
many people from Brioche know well. When I saw her leave the Place de la Douane, I

would have loved to have been on board, at the helm, sailing beyond the horizon, but
unfortunately, I never sailed on her. It wasn't until fifty years later that I researched this
ship, registered in Casablanca, Morocco. I remembered the star-spangled bottles with
pretty names: “Vieux Jacques”, “Père Benoît”, “Vieille treille”, bought at l'Économique.
Above, the only photograph I found with the help of my brother Didier shows the

“Sloughi” in Tréguier.

For the “Sloughi”, it all begins in Plestin Les Grèves, where we meet the De Kergariou
brothers (the last shipowners of Plestin les Grèves). They were the owners of Château de
Lasmae and the four-masted schooner “Capitaine Guyomard”, which from 1945
transported wine from Algeria to Mediterranean and Breton ports. The four-masted
schooner sank off the Spanish coast on December 31st, 1947, claiming the lives of its
Plestinian crew. It was replaced on this line by the “Sloughi”.

The “Sloughi” was built in 1947 following an order placed by the German army at the
Blainville shipyards (Caen).... in 1944! This order for ten tankers was intended to supply
the troops of the Africa Korps. By 1945, only eight of the ten ships had been completed.
The “Sloughi” went to the Navale Chérifienne de Navigation, Casablanca in Morocco. She

was commissioned in 1948. In 1958, after Moroccan independence, the company became
Moroccan. Construction was completed at the end of 1947 at the Caen shipyard in
Blainville (Calvados) for Navale Chérifienne de Casablanca. Dedicated to the transport of
wine, the boat is made of steel with six watertight compartments, two hatches and two
masts. It is equipped with two 1400 hp Sulzer engines at 300 rpm (7 cylinders) with two
propeller shafts, giving it a speed of 12 knots. With a gross tonnage of 1100 tons (579 net),
she is 68 m 90 long, 9 m 44 wide and 4 m 30 deep (vertical in the middle of the boat,

from the top of the keel to the deck planking).