"Aarvak" lost its propeller.

This was something most ships experienced having to do at one time or another, but "Aarvak" probably holds a small unofficial record here. "Aarvak" was particularly prone to propeller damage with the stern she had.

Vebjørn Landmark changed the propeller at least twice. They lost the propeller in both 1918 and 1919. Johan S. Brandal later changed the propeller on "Aarvak" six times.

Transcript from the notebook of skipper Vebjørn Landmark:

It was the end of the season in the Strait. "Aarvak" was the last ship in the westernmost field when it lost its propeller.

When there was fine ice and loose ice, sails were set to sail us out of the ice. It went well until we got so far that we could see open water, then the shutter came and the swell set in and hit the edge tightly.

The swell grew quickly and when there was a lot of ice, it put a lot of strain on the ship. When we put planks or logs between the side of the ship and the sharpest ice edges, they were immediately cut off.

There was only one thing to do, we had to find a way inland to avoid the swells. When the ice had gathered, we had to pull ourselves forward with the help of ropes and ice anchors. It was slow going, but it gradually narrowed.

The next day we had gotten so far that we were getting the hang of it. So the question was: Can we manage to put a new propeller on?

We pulled in the broken shaft, put in a new shaft and screwed the propeller on. We didn't have a lock nut for the propeller, but we drilled a hole in the shaft in front of the propeller and put in an iron pin. Everything happened underwater.

We didn't dare turn the machine astern for fear of losing the propeller again.

We then got out of the ice and home without further mishaps.

 

Johan S. Brandal, "Hau-Johan", took over the skipper job on "Aarvak" from Vebjørn Landmark in 1923. Johan changed the propeller on "Aarvak" a total of six times. He told this story to Ole Røyseth Brende:

-I heard they changed the propeller up in the ice once?

-Once? We changed the propeller 6 times in the ice on board the "Aarvak".

Yes, of course, now I remember from the time I myself traveled on the Arctic Ocean that the word went around about "Aarvak" that she was very susceptible to propeller damage with that stern.

- They unloaded her on the ground then to get her up the back? Drop her on ice feet etc?

-We did it the first few times. But then we stopped doing it. And it turned out that it worked just as well and saved us work.

-It took a while though, didn't it?

-No, I'm sure Hjørungavåg Mek. wouldn't have paid it sooner. Then the joker laughed again.

-It sounds easy, but we know it was quite an achievement.

-No, father, feat? What would you call what Vebjørn Landmark did then? He got a bend in the shaft and couldn't get it through the sleeve. So they sawed off the shaft with a saw blade tied to a bamboo stick. That worked.

-A bit of a labor of patience, I think.

"Hau-Johan" also tells of a time when they changed a propeller in the White Sea:

We had a doctor in the fleet for a while in the White Sea. Then one day we were unlucky and got a bent shaft. We were hoping we could fix it. I conferred with the skipper on the "Sverre", and then we came up with a plan. We put a wire rope on one of the propeller blades, then the "Sverre" would move, and that way we could get the shaft straight again. Suddenly there was a terrible crash, and when we went to investigate it turned out that the sleeve was off.

Going with just one bearing on the axle didn't work. We had to take a wire rope down the axle and up into the hole, stretch it out onto the winch cup and tighten it up. That way we managed to take the weight off the axle and we started our journey home.

The ship was fully loaded. It went well for a while, but then the winch would just slacken no matter how much we tightened the winch. The solution was to replace the winch with a chain. That's how we went all the way to Tromsø. "Fangstmand" kept up with us on the way. When we got to land, we saw that the chain had gnawed holes in the ice from all the vibration.

What saved us from leaking was that the ship was built in a particularly strong way. The casing stock on "Aarvak" was firmly anchored to the stem and the casing was so tightly fitted to the casing stock that there was no leakage.

-We were gradually trained to put on a new propeller ourselves, says "Hau-Johan". The procedure was usually as follows: First we had to find out if the shaft had broken off completely so that it could be pulled into the engine room. Then we disconnected it and pulled it in so far that it was only in the inner bearing while we had to make a wooden plug and drive it back into the sleeve from the other side. This plug pressed the sea in by itself, as long as it hit the hole a little straight. Then we carved out the keyway so that the key would go in when it got stuck in the propeller.

This sounds simple when you talk about it, but when everything has to be done underwater, and you have to use bamboo poles as tools, it's even worse.

Once, while they were changing the propeller in the White Sea, they took a break to get some food. They had tightened the nut four turns and felt they were safe so far. But suddenly, there was a strong ice-breaking, and when it did, everything was frozen together so it was impossible to reach the propeller. They lay like that for four days before the ice loosened again. By then the sea was so murky and full of ice-slush that they couldn't see a thing. They eventually managed to tie some rope between the shaft and the propeller so they dared to start it up. It went well, but they didn't dare turn on the engine again for many days.

Johan S. Brandal gradually became so skilled at changing propellers in the ice that he also helped other ships that had lost their propellers in the ice.

Repaired the propeller with dynamite

Anton Pilskog took over as skipper after the Vesteristuren with "Aarvak" in 1952 and held it until 1958. In 1981, he told Sunnmørsposten an episode about the propeller on "Aarvak":

-I well remember that trip with the "Aarvak" in the mid-50s when one of the propeller blades had become so bent that the engine could not run. We were in the middle of the ice, so good advice was expensive. The rescue was to attach a stick of dynamite to a stick and stick it down to the propeller blade. If the charge had been just a little bigger, we would have lost the propeller, but the charge was just big enough to straighten the blade and get the engine running again.

Admittedly, the propeller wasn't good enough to allow us to go at full speed for the rest of the trip, but we made it home that trip too.