Petter Sørlle
Petter Martin Mattias Koch Sørlle (born February 16, 1884 in Tune near Sarpsborg , † March 18, 1933 in Tønsberg ) was a Norwegian whaling captain , polar explorer and inventor .
Life
Sørlle comes from a family of seafarers . His father Petter Mathias Koch (1854-1883) died at sea three months before he was born. His mother Margrete Kristine Sørlle (1856 – unknown) remarried and emigrated to the United States in 1890 without her son . Sørlle grew up with his grandparents in Sandefjord and went to sea for the first time at the age of 14. As a whaling captain, he was a close associate of the Norwegian whaling magnate Carl Anton Larsen . In April 1909 he married Signy Therese Gulbraar (1892–1988), who was then only 16. The marriage resulted in five daughters.
In 1911 Sørlle first traveled to the South Orkney Islands on board the whaler Paal to open up new fishing grounds. Between 1912 and 1913 he sailed these waters again as a harpooner on the same ship. During this time he made numerous surveys of the South Orkney Islands. He named Signy Island after his wife. In 1915 he worked in the waters around South Georgia and became the first manager of the whaling station in Stromness . From 1922 he was a patent holder for a slipway on fishing ships for hauling in whales .
Sørlle died at the age of 49 after a brief illness. The mountain Sørlle Buttress on South Georgia as well as the Sørlle Rocks , Cape Sørlle and Petter Bay in the archipelago of the South Orkney Islands are named after him.
Web links
- Petter Sørlle. Biography in Norsk Biografisk Leksikon (Norwegian)
- Petter Sørlle - The Naming of Signy Island, Antarctica. Information and portrait photo on coolantarctica.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ John Stewart: Antarctica - An Encyclopedia . Vol. 2, McFarland & Co., Jefferson and London 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-3590-6 , p. 1456 (English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sørlle, Petter |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Koch Sørlle, Petter Martin Mattias (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Norwegian whaler, polar explorer and inventor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 16, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tune (now Sarpsborg ), Norway |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 18, 1933 |
| Place of death | Tonsberg , Norway |