The «Why not» boat has a rich and fascinating history. There were four polar exploration ships, named «Pourquoi-non»I, II, III and IV, all commanded by the French navigator, explorer and oceanographer Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867–1936). The last of these ships was shipwrecked off the coast of Iceland in 1936. The «why not» IV is the most famous of the four. It served on the second Antarctic expedition. This boat was built at the Gautier shipyard in Saint-Malo and launched in 1908. It was designed as an exploration vessel and succeeds the French, also from the Gautier shipyards of Saint-Malo.
Source : various Internet documents including Wikipedia