Thor's hammer (ship)
 The Thor's hammer in Sandefjord in 1929
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The Norwegian whaling factory ship Thorshammer was built in July 1928 by converting the British tanker San Nazario . The ship survived World War II and was also used for whaling during the war . It remained in service until 1962 and was canceled in Italy from September 1962.
Building history
The ship was built as the second tanker of the San Fraterno class from 1913 onwards at the shipyard of William Doxford & Sons in Sunderland (Tyne and Wear) and entered service in autumn 1914 under the name of San Nazario as eight of the ten ships in the class were considered the largest tankers in the world. They had 24 cargo tanks, which were divided with longitudinal and transverse bulkheads. The tanks could be heated with heating coils so that viscous oils could also be transported. The ships built for the Eagle Oil Transport Company were primarily intended to transport fuel oil from Mexico to Europe for the Royal Navy, which was in the process of converting from coal to oil .
During the First World War , the tanker was torpedoed by the German submarine U 53 while leaving for Tampico on October 15, 1917 southwest of the Isles of Scilly . Despite considerable damage, the ballasted tanker was able to call at a British port on its own and was repaired.
After the war, the San Nazario was used like her surviving sister ships for the Royal Dutch Shell .
Conversion to a whaling factory
In July 1928, the San Nazario was sold to the Bryde & Dahl whaling company to be converted into a whaling factory ship. The conversion took place at Framnæs MV in Sandefjord. Unlike the previously converted sister ship CA Larsen , the ship , which was renamed Thorshammer , did not have a towing system to pull the whales hunted by their fishing boats on board and thus to be able to carry out processing on board more easily. The Ole Wegger (ex San Lorenzo ) and Southern Empress (ex San Jeronimo ), which were rebuilt around the same time, also dispensed with this novelty. It was not until the following year that the San Patricio , which was converted into a Southern Princess , received a lift in the stern as part of the conversion , as the other ships later received in slightly different forms.
At the Thorshammer , a stern lift was installed at the Dutch shipyard Wilton-Fijenoord in Rotterdam in the winter of 1931/1932 , when the entire Norwegian whaling fleet was suspended due to the complete drop in whale oil prices as a result of the global economic crisis . She changed the appearance of the ship by adding two chimneys on the sides of the stern lift. At the same time, new and additional equipment for cutting and processing the whales was installed and with these facilities the ship became one of the most modern factory ships.
Mission history
The whaling company of "Bryde & Dahl" received the Thorshammer, their first factory ship for whale processing at sea. Up to now it was a company that caught whales from the coast station Godthul on South Georgia , and initially operated its whale-boiling plant for the production of whale oil on an old sailor. The company belonged to the shipping company A / S "Thorndahl" which since the death of the founder in 1920 of his son Lars Christensen was performed, who also came from a shipping family and his family the sister ship San Lorenzo had acquired and factory ship Wegger Ole had rebuilt . The fleet of the company "Bryde & Dahl" consisted of the whale- boiling Thor I (ex Imaum 1890, 4356 BRT, deployed from 1910 to 1931) and four whalers. For the new factory ship, the company immediately ordered four new fishing boats of 249 GRT from Akers ( Thordr , Thorarinn , Thorfin , Thorgaut ), but these were not delivered until 1929. Other boats followed with the Torlyn , Thorvard and the replacement Torgaut² from Framnæs. Even in the fishing season 1928/1929, the newly refurbished came Thor Hammer in the Southern Ocean near the Bouvet Island with Captain Hjalmar Braavold used. Braavold commanded the ship until 1940, 1942 to 1945 and most recently in the 1946/1947 fishing season. In addition, she transported personnel and equipment for a meteorological station to Bouvet Island, which was taken over by the shipping company's research vessel Norvegia , but was not set ashore because a suitable place could not be found and a hut built the previous year had disappeared. Such involvement of the ship in the Norwegian Antarctic expeditions financed by the shipowner Lars Christensen continued alongside her fishing operations until 1934. In the following 1929/30 season, 117,300 barrels of whale oil were produced with the new fishing boats, which is only slightly less than the modern new Kosmos building with its stern lift . In 1930/1931, in addition to whaling, an exploration of the Antarctic coast was carried out and the Princess Ragnhild Coast was described, which has been claimed as part of Queen Maud Land of Norway since 1939 . The Seksern fishing boat belonging to the shipping company A / S "Odd" went as far as the coast and briefly landed some men.
The winter of 1931/1932, when the Norwegian whaling fleet was launched, was used to install a tail lift. The following season, the Thorshammer was used with six whalers, while the company's coastal fishing was abandoned from South Georgia. She took part again in a research project of her shipowner when she took over a sled expedition from the Antarctic tanker Thorshavn , which she was supposed to drop off in Enderby Land , from where the Weddell Sea group wanted to advance. This was supported by the whaler Torlyn . However, the group found very poor conditions and was recovered by the whaler Globe V after just two days . The Thorshammer met with the Thorshavn in the following two years too , and the shipowner participating in the research trips visited the factory ship that was in operation with his wife Ingrid. The Thorshammer was in use every season until 1940. From 1935, the shipping company A / S Thor Dahl coordinated not only its operations, but also that of the factory ships Ole Wegger (1914, ex tanker San Nazaro ), Solglimt (1900, ex passenger steamer Potsdam ) and the Frango (1917, ex Tanker Golea ) that belonged to different companies. The Thorshammer achieved its best fishing result with seven fishing boats in the 1934/1935 season with 147,702 barrels of whale oil.
In autumn 1939, the Norwegian whalers left for Antarctica despite the outbreak of war, and an agreement was even reached that guaranteed the United Kingdom and the German Reich a fixed share in the expected whale oil yield. The German attack on Norway shortly before the end of the whaling season reversed this and most of the Norwegian factory ships unloaded their cargo in the US. Thorshammer , who arrived in Montevideo on March 23, 1940 at the end of the fishing season , was ordered to march to the USA. Via Rio de Janeiro and Trinidad , she reached New Orleans on May 3 , where she unloaded her cargo. After completing pending repairs in Mobile, Alabama , she transported a load of sunflower oil from Caripito , Venezuela , to Montevideo from June 24 to July 16, 1940 .
War effort
The Thorshammer , which has been in Halifax (Nova Scotia) since August 16, 1940 , was equipped for a new fishing season, during which the Norwegian factory ships Ole Wegger and Pelagos , as well as the British flag Svend Foyn and Southern Empress were to be used . The Thorshammer left Halifax on October 11, one day after the Ole Wegger and Pelagos, and ran via Curacao to Montevideo , which was left on November 13, three days after the Pelagos , for the Southern Ocean. At the beginning of January 1941, it met Solglimt , which was used as a supplier , and sold over 20,000 barrels of whale oil to them. On January 14, 1941, the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin managed to surprise the Solglimt and the Ole Wegger at their next meeting and capture both ships and four fishing boats ( Pol VIII , Pol IX , Pol X , Torlyn ). Three fishing boats, the Pol VII , Globe VIII and Thorarinn , escaped to Thorshammer , which was further to the west , while the German auxiliary cruiser also surprised the Pelagos to the east and captured her and her seven fishing boats. Thorshammer , warned by the escaped fishing boats , left the fishing area with her whalers and ran until the 20th to Grytviken , South Georgia, where she hoped for protection from British naval units. Two days later, the 22,575 GRT British auxiliary cruiser Queen of Bermuda arrived there from the Falkland Islands and was responsible for securing the three remaining factory ships until the end of the fishing season. The Thorshammer resumed the whale hunt with the ten existing fishing boats until April 9th. Then she began the march back via Montevideo and Curacao, where parts of the cargo had already been delivered, to New Orleans , where the ship was largely unloaded from June 19. Only a few products remained on board and were transported to New York . From there the Thorshammer went back to Halifax .
Re-equipped, the factory ship ran through the Panama Canal via New York and Aruba in mid-September on its first fishing trip to the Pacific off the coasts of Ecuador and Peru . American industry had developed an interest in sperm whale products, which were unloaded in New Orleans in late January 1942. There the ship was equipped for another fishing trip in the same hunting area, for which she set out again at the end of April. From the second voyage she returned to the American west coast and unloaded her cargo in Tacoma and Seattle .
From January 1943 the Thorshammer was used as a transporter and tanker on the American west coast and to Hawaii , until it was equipped for a third fishing trip off Peru in July 1943, which it ended at the end of November and transported its prey back to New Orleans. There she was equipped again for a fishing trip to the Southern Ocean, for which she set sail in December 1943. The journey took place through the Panama Canal along the South American west coast and the hunt began in the area of the Sandwich Islands on January 20, 1944. In mid-February, the whale oil produced up to then was unloaded in Leith Harbor and the hunt then continued until mid-April. The Thorshammer then ran to Houston via Valparaíso and the Panama Canal to unload its cargo.
Until the end of the war in Europe, she remained in service as a tanker and transporter on the American east coast and as far as the Netherlands Antilles . At the time of the German surrender, she was in the Panama Canal and it was not until the end of June 1945 that she received cargo to Europe. She then returned to Norway on July 13, 1945.
Post-war use of the Thor's hammer
The ship was prepared for use as a factory ship again in Norway. In the summers of 1948 and 1949, the superstructure and living quarters of the ship were extensively renovated and improved in British shipyards.
In 1962 the Thorshammer was separated and sold to Italy for demolition, which took place in La Spezia .
literature
- Joh. N. Tønnessen, Arne Odd Johnsen: The History of Modern Whaling , University of California Press (1982), ISBN 0-520-03973-4
- Ian B. Hart: Whaling in the Falkland Islands Dependencies 1904-1931: A History of Shore and Bay-based Whaling in the Antarctic . Pequena, 2006, ISBN 0955292409
- RK Headland: Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions and Related Historical Events , Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-15868-0
Web links
- Attack on San Nazario (English)
- Website about Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson (English)
- San Nazario Heroes Line
- History of the Thor's hammer
- Thorshammer Lardex.net
- Thor's hammer during the world war
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thor I
- ↑ Thordr , 4.1929
- ↑ Thorarinn , 4.1929
- ↑ Thorfin , 4.1929
- ↑ Torgaut , 5.1929
- ↑ Torlyn , 8/1929
- ^ Thorvard , 1930
- ↑ Thorgaut², 8.1939
- ^ Research vessel Norvegia , 1919, 285 GRT ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Headland, p. 282
- ^ Headland, p. 288
- ↑ Jordan, Merchant Fleets, p. 302, 387 Ole Wegger "A / S Ørnen", Solglimt "A / S Odd" and Frango "American Whaling Co."
- ^ Tønnessen, p. 482