Belem is a three-masted barque from France. She made her maiden voyage as a cargo ship in 1896, transporting sugar from the West Indies, cocoa, and coffee from Brazil and French Guiana to Nantes, France.
Belem escaped the eruption of Mount Pelée in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, on 8 May 1902. On arriving at Saint Pierre ahead of the eruption, Captain Julien Chauvelon found that roadsteads were full of vessels. With no place to anchor the ship Chauvelon angrily decided to anchor some miles further away off a beach, which provided shelter when the volcano erupted.
She was sold in 1914 to Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, who converted her to his private luxurious pleasure yacht, complete with two auxiliary Bolinder Diesel engines of 300 HP each.
In 1922 she became the property of Sir Ernest Guinness, of the Guinness family, who renamed her the Fantôme II and revised the rig from a square rigger. Guinness was Rear Commodore of the Royal St. George Yacht Club, in Kingstown, Ireland, from 1921 to 1939. He was Vice Commodore from 1940 to 1948. Hon. A.E. Guinness took the Fântome II on a great cruise in 1923 with his daughters Aileen, Maureen, and Oonagh. They sailed the seven seas in making a travel round the world via the Panama and Suez Canals including a visit to Spitsbergen. During her approach to Yokohama harbour while sailing the Pacific Ocean the barque managed to escape another catastrophe – an earthquake which destroyed the harbour and parts of Yokohama city. Guinness died in 1949. The Fântome II was moored in the roads of Cowes, Isle of Wight.
In 1951 she was sold to the Venezian count Vittorio Cini, who named her the Giorgio Cini after his son, who had died in a plane crash near Cannes on 31 August 1949. She was rigged to a barquentine and used as a sail training ship until 1965, when she was considered too old for further use and was moored at the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice.
In 1972 the Italian carabinieri attempted to restore her to the original barque rig. When this proved too expensive, she became the property of the shipyard. In 1976 the ship was re-rigged to a barque.
Finally, in January 1979, she came back to her home port as the Belem under tow by a French seagoing tug, flying the French flag after 65 years. Fully restored to her original condition, she began a new career as a sail training ship.
