Hélène Boccandé

Hélène, dressed and ready for work! Photo credit: Naval Group

Hélène was planning to be a nurse. Instead she’s a welder at Naval Group, working on the components for the nuclear boilers of submarines. Two worlds that, on the surface, have very little in common! Except that in both cases you have to be a perfectionist and have a sense of thoroughness and a job well done because people's lives depend on you. How did she come to do this difficult job, practised by very few women, but which she finds thoroughly satisfying?

"In fact, after my BEP (vocational diploma) in health and social care, I started a vocational baccalaureate, but I didn’t get it,” she says frankly. Not wishing to continue her studies, she undertook a string of odd jobs near her home in La Baule, “trying to find myself”, when a friend told her that the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in Saint Nazaire, was recruiting.

““I had to find my place in this traditionally ‘male’ profession and conditions in heavy boilermaking are certainly not an environment for sensitive and delicate women””

“So I headed off there with my sister and was hired by a temporary agency that paid for my training and my internship, which went very well.” She assembled and welded small parts on the scaffolding that surrounds a ship whilst it’s being built and also did maintenance. “I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the environment and I also liked working only with men,” Hélène says.

She continues: “Welding is meticulous work. When I’ve done done a good job I’m really chuffed! She admits to being a “perfectionist” and finds that “when the weld is very regular, it's clean, it's smooth: it's beautiful!” She started with arc welding or TIG (tungsten inert gas) welding “which is finer, more meticulous” than MIG (metal inert gas) and MAG (metal active gas) welding that she’s never done. She believes women have a rightful place in this profession because “I think women are more meticulous and have more dexterity than men.” she explains. 

Hélène. Photo credit: Naval Group

However, she advises against it for those who are just looking for a day job. “To do this work you have to have eyes that shine with enthusiasm. The environment is dirty, there’s a lot of smoke. It’s not suitable if you’re a super feminine type,” she says bluntly, explaining that she has “a strong character, I‘m not a pushover and I know how to impose myself. I had to find my place in this traditionally ‘male’ profession and conditions in heavy boilermaking are certainly not an environment for sensitive and delicate women, or those who are perceived as such.” Hélène, just 1m60 tall, is perhaps not 'sensitive and delicate' but she is no tomboy either with her shoulder-length blonde hair, her well-defined eyebrows and a piercing over her left eyebrow!

She says she is now accustomed to “this environment”, adding that, anyway “I’ve adapted and I want to be treated like a man because, above all, I want my skills to be recognized.” That being said, she concedes that her five male colleagues on the boilermaking team “take care” of her.

Two and a half years after arriving at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique, she was hired by Kelvion, which manufactures heat exchangers. “They're like big car radiators,” she explains. But it's production line work and after 12 years, in 2017, she was “sick and tired of doing the same thing. I was bored and not learning anything new.” Several of her colleagues having already left the company to work for Naval Group, Hélène decided to follow suit.

She was admitted to the group's welding school and undertook the obligatory six-week training course, because on these military products "you can't do anything stupid!” The young woman passed the qualifying exam and then started a whole new apprenticeship. At first she admits that “it was complicated” and that she felt “utterly lost” with the feeling that she was starting from scratch once again. “I had moments of real doubts but today I’m cool,” she adds.

The team works in three eight hour shifts, four days a week, but for Hélène who is single and childfree “and therefore has no constraints” this rhythm was just a question of organization and a habit to get accustomed to. Today she works on the components of the nuclear boiler which stays in the workshop for 50 months. “The requirement is: zero defects,” she states. Working on a military product does not bother her at all. “Large pieces are fascinating to work on. These are no exhaust pipes! And then, we don’t see the finality. It's the welding itself that interests me, the hands, the gestures.” She is nonetheless proud to be working on what she considers to be a “prestigious” object.

Hélène, ready to weld. Photo credit: Naval Group

Hélène admits that in the private sphere “people are very surprised and mystified” by her choice of job. To practice it she must wear a thick leather jacket and a ventilated welding hood. With a shrug she concedes that “it gets hot, but that's just how it is. Now I'm used to it.” As she works on metal heated to 200ºC, she only stays at her post for an hour at a time. Then she stops to watch over her buddy for an hour before she resumes welding whilst he watches over her.