La Belle (ship) - Construction

Construction

La Salle originally intended to sail to New France, journey overland to the Illinois Country, and then sail down the Mississippi River to its mouth, where he would plant his colony. To carry his supplies, he would need a large ship to traverse the Atlantic Ocean and a smaller one to transport the supplies from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. Louis XIV gave La Salle the use of two ships, Le Joly and La Belle. Originally, La Belle was built as a kit, with the ship frames assigned to one of four quadrants and numbered sequentially so that the pieces could be assembled later. The pieces were intended to be loaded onto Le Joly for transport to North America, and then would be carried overland to the Mississippi River. At that point, La Salle's men would assemble the ship, and it would be used to carry the supplies to their final destination. At the king's urging, the expedition chose to sail directly to the Gulf of Mexico rather than to New France, eliminating the need for a ship to be built in the New World. As the Joly was already heavily laden, La Salle decided that the ship should be assembled in France and sailed across the ocean. Although there were some questions as to whether the ship would survive an ocean crossing, it was nevertheless assembled in France in less than two months and prepared for its journey.

In the late 17th century, the French shipbuilding industry had stagnated. In an effort to "invigorate" the industry, Secretary of State of the Navy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, brought shipbuilders trained in the Mediterranean methods of shipbuilding to Rochefort, where the industry primarily used what was known as the Atlantic shipbuilding method. One of these transplanted shipwrights was Honoré Mallet, who had been raised in Toulon in the south of France. In the official order authorizing the building of La Belle, Mallet was listed as the master shipbuilder, and his son-in-law, Pierre Masson, was responsible for the ship design.

La Belle was a barque-longue, with three masts and a relatively shallow draft of about 8 feet (2 m). Her beam was officially 14 ft 9 inches, and she was 54 ft 4 inches long with a cargo capacity of 40–45 tons. The ship was designed to be highly maneuverable, with the mainmast and foremast holding two sails each, while the mizzenmast supported a single triangular sail, and another small square sail hung from the bowsprit.