8

VESTURVON

ULSTEINVIK AND HULL, 1969–2000

23 March 1969. It was a hopeful spring day in Ulsteinvik on the west coast of Norway.

At the shipment quay of the machine shop Hatlø Mekaniske Verksted was a shiny, stern trawler newbuilding equipped with the latest in filleting machines, skinning machines, a spacious cold storage room and an interior outfitted for a crew of 47. The ship also had air conditioning, which would ensure cool temperatures even in tropical waters.

It was the most advanced factory trawler ever built in the long-established shipyard town. The vessel was destined for the Faroe Islands, where it would lead Faroese fishery into the modern age.

“May she bring good fortune to all who sail on her, I hereby name thee Vesturvon,” the Godmother read before releasing the champagne bottle with a smash against the side of the ship, which many years later would come to be known as the Thunder. The shipyard’s general manager subsequently asked the Godmother to be sure to accompany the vessel in her prayers for the remainder of her lifetime.

On the Faroe Islands, the trawler was welcomed by a brass band and a jubilant crowd.1 The first shipmaster, the silent and authoritative Davor Poulsen, held a devotional meeting in the lounge every Sunday, no matter how good the fishing was. For several years they fished in the banks around Greenland. Twice the ship experienced an engine breakdown and had to be towed south. But the Vesturvon was a survivor; although the storm blew the roofs off the houses on the Faroe Islands and the towing line snapped, the trawler miraculously made it to a shipyard in Denmark.

After 17 years of service fishing cod around Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the Vesturvon was sold to the long-established English family shipyard Boyd Line. When in 1986 the ship sailed into the English seaport of Hull, it was given the name Arctic Ranger.

Hull was once one of the world’s largest fishing harbours. In the 1950s, the city was the home port of 350 trawlers. The fishing around Iceland, the Barents Sea, Bear Island and along the coast of Labrador was the most dangerous and rough in the world, but the catches were incredible. The ship owners lived like barons and when the trawler seamen came ashore at St Andrew’s Dock, the wealth was often squandered in the course of three days. They were called “the three day millionaires”.2 Many of them never had the chance to enjoy the profits reaped from the ocean. Between 1835 and 1983, 900 of the city’s ships disappeared at sea. In addition to this came the many seamen who were washed overboard by a wave to vanish into the darkness. Hull had lost 6,000 men at sea.

In August the Vesturvon set out from Hull headed for Newfoundland. Seven of the trawler’s former crew from the Faroe Islands were on the voyage. The English crew were trawler seamen who had not had work since the Cod Wars 11 years before. These wars were not mentioned as they sailed north; they talked about the Suez conflict and about the Falklands War two years earlier. Some spoke about their fathers, who had fought at Dunkirk during the Second World War, but the subject of the Cod Wars was off limits. It had torn the heart out of “Trawlertown”.

In the autumn of 1975, Norway and Iceland expanded their territorial borders and shut the Hull fleet out from its former fishing banks. Hull slowly deteriorated into ruin, the fish merchants went under, the once so lively St Andrew’s Dock was levelled to the ground, the warehouses fell into disrepair, the store windows were sealed up with particle boards and nobody lifted the heavy coils of rope on the harbour any longer. Even the churches went by the wayside. The cheerful Hessle Road turned into one of the most impoverished stretches of road in Great Britain.

The aging shipmaster who guided the old Vesturvon towards the coast of Newfoundland had never before been on a factory trawler. He seldom spoke with the crew and on the bridge he wore a suit and freshly shined shoes. The crew from the Faroe Islands noticed that the Englishmen had “another attitude to rank and cleanliness”.

At the unsheltered fish bank Flemish Cap things were about to go wrong again for the old Vesturvon. As the storm released itself upon the ship, the trawler ran aground on the seabed. The ship was narrow, long and had a low freeboard. Before long the ocean was washing over the deck and filling the trawler with water. The Faroese boatswain was flipped over by the waves pounding across the deck and was on the verge of vanishing into the ocean. But this time too, the ship rode out the storm.

At the start of the new millennium, the Vesturvon’s proud history came to an end. The shipping company was not granted a fishing quota in Norway and in a partnership with a Russian shipping company, the trawler was sent out to fish in the Barents Sea, this time under the name of the Rubin.

In the Barents Sea, the ship, which would later be known as the Thunder, disappeared into a maelstrom of shell corporations, bizarre ships registers and shady expeditions.