The 1957 built 58 mtr long SEAWOLF (ex Clyde) moored in Harlingen awaiting weather improvement to be towed by the tug DUTCH PEARL to Pendennis, Falmouth to complete the refit which is expected to take another 1,5 year.
Photo: Ben Hofs JNE www.flyjne.eu ©
The replica was built in 2017, but the original Sant Maria should qualify as a veteran ship:
Replica of the SANTA MARIA moored in Curacao
Photo: Joop Kooijman ©
A sister ship of Golar Frost:
GOLR GIRL, a vessel with a long history of service under different owners and flags (1973-2009)
https://skipshistorie.net/Fruktskip/Tekster/UKJ10119730100000%20GOLAR%20GIRL.htm
Arctic Ocean Museum Aarvak: Wants to take over M / S Polarstar
The Arctic Museum would like to take over the sailing memory of Hareid, Sunnmøre and Norway’s solid seal hunting search, and with the safe ship for future generations. - We have good faith in making it happen, says daily leader Webjørn Landmark.
Will take over the baton: Here you see the current owner of Polarstar, Willy Nesset, flanked by Eldar Hareide (left) and Webjørn Landmark, mostly board member for and daily leader at the Arctic Museum Aarvak. The latter now wants to buy Polarstar from Nesset - if the financing goes well.
PHOTO: OLE-OTTAR KARLSEN HØGSTAVOLL.
There was a bustling crowd on the quay in Brandal when Polarstar rounded Kvitneset on the way home, 26 August 2017.
PHOTO: RAGNHILD VARTDAL
One of the country’s most important cultural monuments
The National Heritage Board has called M / S Polarstar the «most important boat in polar history that floats today», and has protected the vessel The boat was built in Glasgow, and came to Norway in 1948 - as the very symbol of modern seal hunting. The architect behind this first steel sealer was none other than the legendary Arctic Ocean skipper Kristoffer Marø. For a full 50 years, Polarstar belonged to Martin Karlsen’s company in Brandal.
The boat was originally condemned in 1998, 100 years after the seal hunt from Brandal and Sunnmøre started. In 1899, Polarstar was sold for scrapping - but the kind old souls Bjarne and Lars Brandal, and others, saved the ship from becoming nails. After restoration on a voluntary basis, the boat received three trips for seal hunting in the 2000s. The ship was again on its way to becoming nails when Willy Nesset and other local sponsors bought it in 2008. After the mentioned restoration, Polarstar came sailing home to Brandal - and has since been used in various contexts.
According to Webjørn Landmark, Polarstar has more than 50 trips on seal hunting and has brought great wealth home to the country - with enormous ripple effects to many other suppliers and industries. Many of the maritime industries in Sunnmøre originated from the seal hunting industry, such as the shipbuilding industry and offshore.
Until 1970, Polarstar had many out-of-season assignments in the High North for various freight rates with frozen cargo in the USA and Europe. For example, the boat often had frozen fish from Ulstein Fryseri every time they went seal hunting at Newfoundland. The ship sailed a lot from Canada to Boston and New York. But also from England to Sweden and Germany. Polarstar was also a pioneer boat in Norwegian oil history and was used for oil exploration in 1964 with many assignments in seismic. From 1979 to 1988, the Polarstar was a commercial ship on Svalbard, and from 1990 it was one of the pioneer boats in newer tourist traffic on and around Svalbard, Landmark said.
- Unique opportunity
According to the museum owner, Polarstar will not only be an extended arm to the museum, but the boat also provides opportunities to strengthen the Arctic Museum monologically by, for example, transporting passengers from cruises and Hurtigruten from Ålesund to Brandal.
- The Arctic Museum has had a meeting with the industry about this, and there is interest in having a collaboration. The museum has also had contact with several actors within the tourism industry in Sunnmøre, and everyone applauds the initiative. The Arctic Museum will first and foremost preserve Polarstar for future generations, but will also be able to actively use a unique and authentic ship for communication, especially to school children. Furthermore, the ship could be an extended arm for disseminating seal hunting and polar history along the coast, and help to increase interest in history, the Arctic Museum, the industry and Hareid municipality. And not least increase the number of visitors to the Arctic Museum and be a symbol of an important industry in Norway, says Webjørn Landmark in conclusion.
From smp.no today (Translated by Google Translation)
PS> The Arctic Muesum already have one traditional wooden sealer, the Aarvak, but she is pulled ashore and protected by a roof:
Generation difference:
Replica fishing boat from the 1880s, “Storeggen af Aalesund”:
Catamaran Sightseeing boat “Geirangerfjord II”:
The 83-year old steam tug Y 8122 on the slipway of the Museum Harbour Willemsoord, Den Helder, the Netherlands.
Photo: maritiemdenhelder.eu ©
MV Tore Jarl, combined Breakbulk/Refer built for short sea/coastal shipping in Trondheim,1955. Sank from neglect in Abidjan, 2003:
https://skipshistorie.net/Trondheim/TRH110NFDS/Tekster/TRH11019560100000%20TORE%20JARL.htm
Not wanting to clutter up the gCaptain forum by starting an entirely new thread, this seems like as good of a place as any to ask this question:
In the days of riveted steel/iron ships (i.e. Great Eastern, Lusitania, Titanic, etc…) what was done about water-tightening between plates? Were the plates squished together so hard that no additional water-tightening measures were necessary, or was there some form of prophylactic measure comparable to caulking in a wooden-hulled vessel?
I have imagined something akin to smearing the seams with tar before riveting the plates together, but that is purely my imagination running wild. What did they actually do to water-tight riveted ships?
Yes, a sort of caulking without filler.
The red-hot bolts were hammered into the recovering sheets; when the bolts cooled down and shortened, they compressed the sheets very strongly.
To make it really watertight, the edges of the recovering plates were hammered into the metal of the underlying sheet; the same for the circumference of the bolt’s heads.
From Caulk - Wikipedia >>>
### Iron or steel shipbuilding
In riveted steel or iron ship construction, caulking was a process of rendering seams watertight by driving a thick, blunt chisel-like tool into the plating adjacent to the seam. This had the effect of displacing the metal into a close fit with the adjoining piece. Originally done by hand much like wooden vessel caulking, pneumatic tools were later employed. With the advent of electric arc welding for ship construction, steel ship caulking was rendered obsolete.
### Boilermaking]
Caulking of iron and steel, of the same type described above for ship’s hulls, was also used by boilermakers in the era of riveted boilers to make the joints watertight and steamtight.
There was an incredible noise level inside the hull from all these pneumatic hammers.
Once, an old shipyard engineer told me that, after years of working, most of the hammering men were nearly deaf…
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In a shipyard more years ago than I think about some plates near the bow were being replaced. .As Urs posted the noise was incredible. The guy on the outside positions the white hot rivet in the hole and holds it in with the holding up dolly. The guy on the inside uses the riveting gun to shape the end of the rivet into the countersunk hole and smooth it over.
They were working under a canvas shelter on the scaffolding and left a bucket of hot rivets to close to the canvas when they went for a meal break. The ship put out the fire.
Riveted ships were not seaworthy without a supply of ash broomsticks.
Could you elaborate on the use of the ash broomsticks?
With the information you provided I did a little more digging on the subject and found this fascinating video:
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When riveted ships got old and rivets got corroded they sometime “fell out”, especially from heavy slamming in head seas. Ash broomsticks were used to stop leaks, since ash swells out when wet.
The procedure was simple; cut off a piece of an ash broomstick of suitable diameters,
Shape one end slightly to ease entry into rivet hole
Hammer it in until firmly in place and let it swell to form a firm seal
Anecdote;
In 1967 I was !st Officer on this ship, M/V Slogen, blt. in 1941 as Sirius:
She had an explosion in the engine room while in Rumbai, Sumatra, was towed to Singapore and declared a total loss. Sold to Lian Soon Shipping .
When pulled up on a slipway for repairs someone made a remark; “she looks like a porcupine” from all the Ash broomsticks sticking out of the hull below waterline.
PS> She was eventually scrapped in 1970. The main engine could not be aligned as it was found that she was permanently bent due to heat from the fire.
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This small wooden car and pax ferry sailed for years across the fjord from centre of Ålesund to Hoff on Ellingsøy under the name Ellingsøyferga:
https://skipshistorie.net/Tromso/TRS101TromsFylkesDS/Tekster/TRS10119650100000%20BORINGEN.htm
She was replaced in by a newbuilt ferry in 1964:
https://skipshistorie.net/Tromso/TRS101TromsFylkesDS/Tekster/TRS10119780100000%20HAVNNES.htm
From 1974 - 87 the route was served by MRF (now Fjord 1) using various ferries.
Here is one of them having a spot of problem on one of the last trips in 1987:
From 1987 Ellingsøy has been connected with Ålesund by a subsea tunnel:
The Ellingsøy tunnel is 3,520 meters long and reaches 144 meters under sea level.