From the days when Wilh. Wilhelmsen ships called at Oslo at the end of a trip and beginning of the next. (this ended in the mid-1960s).
5 of them moored at Filipstad, Oslo:
The WW ships of this type were between 8-10,000 DWT, had 6 holds w/3 decks and 20 derricks + jumbo derrick of 30m.t. SWL. The older ships had wooden board hatches, w/3 tarpaulins covering the top hatch.
Lot of hard work for the deck crew. especially in Aussie ports, since the “wharfies” did not handle hatch boards, cross beams, tarpaulins, or hatch tents.
(It was said that after a round trip in Australia you could “clean your a*s with your elbows”)
PS> Theben (blt. 1953) had foldable steel hatch covers on the top deck.
They could all carry12 Pax and had a crew of around 50, mostly Norwegian and Spanish (Galicians), but many other nationalities were commonly found among the crew members.
On Tuesday, the square-rigger “Sørlandet” arrived at Skansekaia, and will stay in Ålesund until Thursday. Previously, she was a school ship for seamanship training of young boys starting their maritime career. Now she is available for secondary education and adventure sailing for “youth” of all ages.
PHOTO: LARS INGE SKREDE, smp.no
This time she has 60 environmentally conscious young people on board. After a ten-day voyage, they they sign off and are replaced by 60 new crew.
Young people aged 16–25 get to take part in the work on board, while at the same time learning about nature and climate and environmental challenges.
Naturally, there is a special focus on the sea during the “adventure cruise”.
Once upon a time USA was a shipbuilding superpower, mass producing merchant ships like the Liberty, Victory, C1 and T2 for the war effort in WWII.
When the war ended many of those ships became surplus to requirement for the US fleet and got sold off to private US owners and to replace the many ships lost by allied merchant fleets.
Many ended up on Norwegian hands and served well for many years, until new ships could be built to replace them.
These were wonderful ships, and I was lucky enough to grow up (professionally) on them. I think at one time in the mid to late 80s there were at least 6 operating in Alaska as fish processors. We called them “Knot Ships”, and mine started out as the MS Reef Knot. I think there’s only one left working there. Excellent training ships, with their engine-room controlled direct reversible diesels.
The 1971 Warnemünde built SOLDROTT, owned by Johannes Solstad of Skudeneshavn, Norway, was photographed passing Rozenburg outbound from Rotterdam on 6th June 1974.
Photo: Malcolm Cranfield
Solstad hasn’t always been an Offshore Vessel owner. The first ship in the Solstad fleet was the Soldrott, blt. 1939, purchased in 1964:
