The name translates as 'the why not' and this was the fourth ship to carry the name. She was a three-masted barque, equipped with a steam engine, and contained three laboratories and a library. She was built in Saint-Malo on the plans of François Gautier, was 40 metres long, 57 metres overall, 9.2 metres beam and had a crew of 32 including 4 or 5 scientists.
In 1908 Jean-Baptiste Charcot departed on the Pourquoi Pas? IV to winter on Petermann Island (on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula) for his second polar expedition. During this expedition, several members of the crew including Charcot suffered from scurvy. The expedition returned to France in June 1910 after another scientifically rich wintering. The mapping of l'Ile Alexandre was completed and a new island discovered, la Terre Charcot, 80 km away.
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