Kong Harald (ship, 1890)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
The Kong Harald was a 1890 posed in service passenger ship of the Norwegian shipping company Det Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab (NFDS), which from 1919 to 1950 on the Hurtigruten was verkehrte.1954 along the Norwegian coast the ship in Belgium scrapped.
The ship
The 953 GRT steamship Kong Harald was built at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Bremerhaven - Geestemünde for Det Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab. The building cost 400,000 Norwegian kroner in terms of monetary value at the time . In October 1890 the 60.4 meter long and 9.2 meter wide ship was handed over to its owners. It had a chimney, two masts and a propeller . The ship was powered by a triple expansion steam engine from the H. Pauksch AG boiler factory in Landsberg an der Warthe , which developed 834 PSi and enabled a speed of twelve knots.
The Kong Harald was put into service for the winter season on the route from Hamburg via Kristiansand to Vadsø , which the Det Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab operated in cooperation with the Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab (BDS). In the summer it was used for cruises to Nordkapp in Finnmark and to Spitsbergen . In 1894 it collided with the Hurtigruten ship Orion near Ålesund and had to be repaired in Trondheim. On April 17, 1897, the Kong Harald collided with the steamer Olaf Trygvesøn (593 GRT), which belonged to the same shipping company. It was repaired at Akers mekaniske Verksted in Oslo and was back in service on April 26, 1897. On February 10, 1907, the Kong Harald ran aground in Haugesund .
In 1909 the Kong Harald was rebuilt for 254,000 crowns and extended by 7.5 meters. The steam engines and steam boilers were replaced and the interior was also modernized. From July 1, 1919, she was only used for service on the Hurtigruten.
On June 17, 1924, the Kong Harald , which was coming from Svolvær on a southbound course, collided with the steaming northward Haakon Jarl six nautical miles north of the island of Landegode in the Vestfjord . The bow of the Kong Harald dug deep into the aft of the Haakon Jarl , which went down within eight minutes. 17 passengers and crew members were killed. The Kong Harald remained on the Hurtigruten service after this accident. On February 27, 1929, a fire broke out in the stern area in the first class and the ship had to be repaired in the Nordre shipyard in Trondheim. On October 6, 1937, after an engine failure , she stopped at Øksnes and had to be towed to Trondheim by the salvage ships Parat and Traust .
In World War II
When Norway was occupied by the Wehrmacht on April 9, 1940 , the ship was in the shipyard in Trondheim for its annual maintenance. During the war, Tromsø was the northernmost Hurtigruten port of call. The province of Finnmark could only be reached by cutter. On December 9, 1941, Kong Harald was attacked by British warships near Lødingen as part of the Operasjon Anklet (Operation Kitbag), an air raid on Florø carried out by British commandos . A prize team came on board the Kong Harald and wanted to bring it to Great Britain . Since the ship had not loaded enough coal for such a long crossing, it stayed in Norway.
The ship avoided sinking several times during the war. On January 21, 1943, the Kong Harald was attacked by two Norwegian torpedo boats in the Frøysjøen fjord in Bremanger . But the torpedoes missed their target. In July 1944 she was torpedoed by an unknown submarine in Folda fjord near Rørvik , but in this case too the torpedo passed. On October 4, 1944, the Kong Harald was in the Bergen Mekaniske Verksted shipyard in Laksevåg near Bergen , when the nearby submarine bunkers of Laksevåg were the target of a heavy Allied air strike . 193 civilians were killed in this attack, including 61 school children. The Kong Harald was badly damaged, but could be repaired.
Post-war years
Since there was a shortage of ship tonnage after the end of the war due to the massive losses of Norwegian ships during the war, the 55-year-old Kong Harald was returned to the Hurtigruten in July 1945. On February 27, 1946, she was the first ship to dock in Øksfjord after the end of the war . The Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab decided to have the Kong Harald modernized and sent her to the Trondheim Mekaniske Verksted . She returned this in July 1948 with a shorter chimney and new interior fittings.
On October 17, 1950, the Kong Harald stranded at Heggebåen near Florø and had to be towed to Trondheim by the rescue ship Uller . The ship was laid up in Trondheim until it was bought in February 1951 for 500,000 crowns by the Antwerp-based Belgian company Union de Remorquage et Sauvetage SA. This called the Kong Harald in the west end around and used it as a cruise liner in Ostend . In June 1954, the 64-year-old ship was sold to Bruges for demolition and scrapped there.