Cousteau died on 25 June 1997. The Cousteau Society and its French counterpart, l'Équipe Cousteau, both of which Jacques-Yves Cousteau founded, are still active today. The Society is currently attempting to turn the original Calypso into a museum and it is raising funds to build a successor vessel, the Calypso II.
RV Calypso is a former British Royal Navy Minesweeper converted into a research vessel for the oceanographic researcher Jacques-Yves Cousteau, equipped with a mobile laboratory for underwater field research. She was severely damaged in 1996, and is undergoing a complete refurbishment in 2009-2011. The ship is named after the Greek mythological figure Calypso.
In June 2010 the BBC reported that the Calypso was to be relaunched to mark the centenary of Jacques Cousteau's birth.[11] According to one of the ship's former crew who visited the shipyard, the vessel was still being stored in several pieces in the same hangar as of 11 June 2010 - the official date of the centenary - and is unlikely to sail any time soon.
WHEN MY husband died 11 years ago, I wed to continue his life's work of conserving and protecting the environment. As president of the Cousteau Society, the organization Jacques started in 1973, I am overseeing a yearlong, $6 million restoration of the Calypso, his original research boat, to be completed in June 2009.
