The most defining experience in a long life.

Several pairs of tugboats are heading towards the slightly inaccurate position, including "Salarøy" from Tromsø and "Artus" from Herøy on Sunnmøre, as well as the rescue boat "Hjalmar Bjørge" which is stationed in Vardø.

On board the "Lance II", the entire crew, with the exception of one man, has gathered in the wheelhouse. The ship has already started to take a hard hit, the main engine has stopped, and only the battery-powered emergency lights are working. The ship is pitching violently. Assistant Engineer Roald Martinsen saw that the bottom of the ship was almost torn away from under the main engine when he looked down into the engine room.
Ten minutes later, the skipper is on the radio again and emphasizes that this is about lives. Bas Gudmund Skogvik launches several distress flares, which get the oncoming boats on the right course. "Salarøy" then determines that "Lance II" is 7-8 nautical miles (quarter mile) south of Makkaur, at the Syltefjord staurane.

Winter capelin fishing: After the traditional winter herring fishery on Møre ended in the late 60s, winter capelin fishing was salvaged for the purse seine fishermen. Large quantities of capelin were caught, and the herring oil factories as far south as Rogaland kept the wheels turning grinding up capelin. Capelin was fished with both purse seines and trawls at that time.

"Lance II": Combined Arctic ship and purse seine, built at Kaarbø in Harstad in 1966, extended in 1969. Since it was built as a seal catcher, it was a strongly built boat. In 1974 the ship had these dimensions: LOA 45,5 m, LPP 40,14 m, BSPANT 8,10 m, DRISS 4,51 m. The engine was a MaK PÅ 1500 HP. The cargo capacity was just under 4800 hl. Owned by Enok Martinsen.

"Arthur": Built as the whaling boat D/S «Pol XV» in 1951. Later converted to a longboat with the name «Severin Roald». Bought for Herøy, converted to a purse seine and given the name «Artus» in 1971/72. At that time had dimensions Length: 52,33m, Width: 9,05m and Draft: 4,29m. The main engine was a MaK PÅ 1100 HP. The cargo capacity was around 8300 hl. Owned by Arthus K Sævik P/R.

"Salaroy": Built in 1959, Length 124,6 feet – 38,0 meters. Width 7,35 meters and draft 3.62 meters. The main engine was a Wichmann of 700 hp. Owner was Ragnar Kvitberg et al.
Weather: The first part of the season has been very bad weather, and little fishing. On Friday 8 February, the large British trawler "Gaul" with 36 men on board sank on the North Cape Bank in a storm and heavy seas.
Syltefjordstauran is an inhospitable mountain range of about 3 kilometers. In the sea in front of the rock there are some shallows and rocks. The name comes from the characteristic vertical pillars in the mountain. Syltefjordstauran is one of Norway's largest bird cliffs.

The first month of the capelin fleet had been a lot of inland fishing. There was no weather or anything special to catch. But on Thursday 7 February, "Lance II" made a good haul, about 2,800 hl of capelin. They are not loaded, so they continue to search. The next day, a strong storm is reported and the skipper decides to report in and head for land. They are directed to Vadsø for unloading. After unloading, they will stay in Vadsø before heading to Båtsfjord on Sunday, which is closer to the fishing grounds, and wait for better weather.

The skipper has announced his departure from Vadsø early in the evening. At 21 pm the chief engineer is still missing. This was very unusual, he was always reliable. The police are contacted, the fear was that he had fallen into the sea. At 22:15 pm the chief engineer arrives. Only his brother, assistant engineer Roald, learns that he has been to a religious meeting. As far as Roald knew, this was completely unusual.
As soon as the engine starts, they set sail. It is about 22:30 PM when "Lance II" leaves Vadsø heading for Båtsfjord. There is a little wind, snow flurries, but calmer weather than when they arrived before the weekend. There are still some heavy seas after the storm, but nothing that matters to the ship.
At two in the morning there is a change of guard on the bridge, the skipper leaves and the mate comes on. It is dark with snow flurries, but visibility is good. At three o'clock they pass Vardø, now they notice the heavy sea more, but everything goes on as usual.

One day around five in the morning, engineer assistant Roald Martinsen is sitting in the mess, taking a disc and reading a newspaper. Then there is a violent crash, and he notices that they have run aground. He jumps out of the mess and calls out to all the men in the stern. The base – Gudmund Skogvik wakes up from the crash and gets out of his bunk. In only his underwear he comes to the bridge. All the men in the stern are now awake, Gudmund Skogvik goes back to his cabin, gets dressed and puts on his life jacket.
The chief engineer wants to go down into the engine room, but assistant engineer Roald stops him. He had seen that the bottom was gone, so there was nothing he could do.

Gradually everyone gathers on the bridge. All the men who were living up front are awakened by the alarm, they get dressed and put on life jackets. They don't see one man, they shout and knock on the door, they can't get the door open either. They hope and conclude that he must have gone to mass early. When they open the door under the ground, water rushes in. The stretchers hit the deck and the ship heaves with every swell. When the last man is about to jump over the deck, an antenna on the wheelhouse roof has come loose and hits him in the head. He gets a big cut. His comrades take him between them and ask him to the bridge.
The last of the men who lived up front never made it to the bridge. They feared that he would never get out of the cabin, or that he would get out onto the deck and be pulled out by the sea and thrown overboard.

It's dark, a sour wind is blowing from the east, and there are occasional snow showers.
The skipper calls Vardø radio and says they have run aground. The mate and the lookout have trouble figuring out where they are, they point to a place on the map between Sandfjord and Makkaur. The skipper communicates this.

"Lance II" has entered the first shallows that break, and the ship is lying on the rock ledge and is being tossed this way and that by the sea. The crew realizes that it will not be long before the ship will be crushed to pieces. Everyone on the bridge except the skipper is wearing a lifebelt. He could not open the cupboard door in the cabin where the belt was. On the radio they hear that several boats are heading towards them. Bas Gudmund opens the window and sticks his hand out and sends up emergency flares, so that other vessels can pinpoint where "Lance II" is. It then becomes clear that they are lying at the Syltefjord tower. Several of the men who have come aft have little clothing on. The skipper, who has a cabin aft for the cutlery, goes to the cabin and finds clothes for those who have little.

After a while, the skipper, along with two men, goes to the wheelhouse roof and wants to try to release the rafts. One idea is to put one on the boat deck behind the wheelhouse and then wait until the "Lance II" goes down. The idea was never tried, as soon as the rafts have inflated, the line in one of them wears out in the rough sea. The other is punctured between the sea and the ship. While the men are working on the rafts, Bass Gudmund contacts Vardø radio, where he clearly asks for helicopter assistance. "This is about lives," he concludes.

The light boat is not hanging in place in the davits. Later they see it high up on the rock on land, it is difficult to understand how it got there.
At 06:10, the Main Rescue Center in Bodø receives an updated position for "Lance II" from "Salarøy".
With the exception of the injured man sitting in the cutlery, the rest of them are standing together in the wheelhouse. It is difficult to keep their balance as the heavy sea keeps washing over and throwing the vessel. As the sea works, it settles more and more over. Outside, there is an icy and sour wind from the east, and snowdrifts in the air. It is tough to stand like this waiting for help. In the light from the distress flares, they had seen a bit of the landscape, and they know that it may be difficult for other vessels to get to them. On land, the vertical Syltefjord poles did not look at all like a place for rescue. It is calm in the wheelhouse, the men have good faith in rescue.

"Salarøy arrives at the casualty at 06:25. The crew sees that the sea is driving the "Lance II" to pieces. They also see the rocks and the wreck between themselves and the "Lance II". It is more like the casualty is lying in a kind of lagoon, between the rocks that are breaking and the rock wall. "Salarøy" does not have a rescue rifle on board, but they launch the light boat and inflate a raft. With the help of the light boat they try to steer the raft to the casualty. The light boat is attached to "Salarøy" with a wire. Several of the crew of "Lance II" stand ready on the port side of the wheelhouse to grab the raft. They have more than enough to hold on to in the large wrecks that constantly hit them. It is a disappointing attempt, the raft punctures in the encounter with "Lance II" and the reef. It has been said that the same thing was later attempted using a balloon instead of a life raft, without success either.

Now the Sunnmøre boat "Artus" has also arrived. They have rescue rifles. It is difficult to see how a rescue via line will work in these conditions, but skipper Per Sævik and the crew are doing everything they can to save the people. They put the light boat into the sea, with two men, the base Magne Sævik and fisherman Hilmar Leine. They go as close as possible before the ship shoots the line over. Several of the crew of "Lance II" are on the wheelhouse roof and ready to receive. The line hits the wheelhouse roof as intended. In the darkness and snowdrift it is difficult to see the line, and before anyone can get a hold of it, the sea throws "Lance II" so that the line disappears out of reach.

Both "Artus" and "Salarøy" released oil to calm the turbulent sea.
At 7 o'clock in the morning the lifeboat "Hjalmar Bjørge" arrives. It also goes as close as possible, and new lines are thrown over, but the heavy swells constantly throw at "Lance II" and no line is caught. There are four tired men on board "Lance II" who have to give up this hope and go back to the wheelhouse.

"Artus", "Salarøy" and "Hjalmar Bjørge" are a stone's throw away, perhaps as close as 50-60 meters away. They have tried in every conceivable way to get a line across to the wreck, without success. Through the light from the searchlights they see the people in the snow drift aboard the wreck. They all feel helpless and in great despair. The hope is that the helicopter will arrive before the ship is crushed to pieces in the wreck.

"Lance II" is slowly but surely being ground down, and is drifting further and further away. The wheelhouse is getting tighter and tighter, one door is being washed away. More and more water is coming in over the side. The ship is pitching violently and one man is badly injured in the chest when he is thrown against the large steering wheel. He is placed in the hold with the other injured man. The skipper is with them. The entire time since the grounding, the crew has been calm, there is no sign of panic.

As the ship is torn apart and drifts further and further away, Gudmund Skogvik does not feel safe on the bridge. He is afraid that they will all drown where they are. The hope is rescue by helicopter, but that will take time. He urges the others to join him on the wheelhouse roof. Five men are on board, and then probably three more will join. The two injured men, along with the skipper, are back in the boat. On the wheelhouse roof, Gudmund assesses the situation of the hull of the "Lance II" as critical, and feels that it is time to abandon ship. He looks around in the light from the searchlights of the other vessels. The steep Syltefjord piers run almost vertically into the sea, and they are frightening when the piers hit them. Then he thinks of the icy seawater and he registers that the large net is in the sea behind the ship.

Still, he sees the sea as the rescue. When the ship capsizes, he sees that it is only a few meters down to the shore from the stern mast. So if he climbs up and lets himself go, there might be a chance of rescue. He climbs up, but sees that where he might want to land is rough and slippery, so he considers it too dangerous to attempt it.

The uncertainty of being on board makes him decide to throw himself into the sea when the stretcher comes, and he does so. As he meets the sea, his life jacket disappears over his head. He throws the stretcher further and ends up on a rock ledge and climbs further up to safety. Then he turns to the others and makes a sign that this went well and they just have to try.

Engineer assistant Roald sees him and wants to follow suit, and throws himself on the stretcher. He is afraid of getting caught in the net, so he takes a knife between his teeth in case he gets caught. He gets a good beating in the sea, but then comes to himself and lies naked on a rock ledge. He turns and looks for the others. He sees four men on the boat deck, three of them clinging to the radar mast, while the fourth is walking towards the railing. Roald then turns and climbs further up to Gudmund and safety.

The two men turn and look at their comrades on the boat deck. Then it's as if the whole ship just crumbles away. First the foreship disappears, the mast with the barrel comes whizzing by, and soon the rest of the ship with the wheelhouse and the shipmates disappear in a single inferno of sea and smoke.
"Artus" is still as close as they can get. They first see the hull of "Lance II" break in front of the wheelhouse and the mast with the barrel fall aft. Soon after, it is as if the stern of the ship with the wheelhouse, the stern mast and those remaining on board disappear from the surface of the sea in a single flash. Where they saw people a short time ago, there is now only an inferno of wreckage and sea spray.
From the steep Syltefjord cliffs, the two survivors have registered what happened with disbelief. They themselves are freezing cold, the cold east wind literally sucking the heat out of their partially naked bodies. They keep moving and wait for the helicopter to arrive. Roald is practically naked, and he has been hit the hardest on the trip in the sea, Gudmund massages him to keep him warm. It is about half an hour before they hear the helicopter.

The rescuer is quickly lowered down to them, and they are hoisted into the helicopter.
The helicopter then searches out over the sea and sees two men in the water. The rescuer goes down, and both are picked up. Unfortunately, both are dead. The helicopter then sets course towards Vardø to get the two survivors to hospital.

At 08:10, a deceased person is picked up by the fishing boat "Geir Johansen". Another deceased person is later found and picked up by the rescue helicopter.
Of the crew of 13, two men survived. Four were found dead. The other seven were buried in a wet grave. (Several months later, skeletal remains were found. The relatives who were contacted by the police felt it was a great additional burden to be contacted long after the sinking with questions about the brand of boots and shoe sizes of their loved ones.)

Roald Martinsen and Gudmund Skogvik saved his life.
Those who died were: Oddvar Simonsen, Ingemar Nilsson, Ernst Martinsen, Jan Valter Jensen, Kjell Fosshaug, Rudolf Mikkelsen, Kastor Johnsen, Karstein Andreassen, Knut Thomassen, Helge Hanssen and Oddmund Johnsen.

What was the cause of the ground disturbance and the sinking? The sea explanation in which the two survivors gave their explanations did not give a good answer as to why "Lance II" sank. Engineer assistant Roald pointed out that the guards were probably not on the bridge when the ship hit the ground, as he did not know where they were. The lookout was a first for 17 years, he was not to be blamed. Despite the darkness and snowdrifts, the witness said it would have been possible to see the wreck before it ran aground.
Bas Gudmund said that on the trip into Vadsø three days earlier the autopilot had switched off, something that had never happened before. The autopilot was examined, without finding any fault. This could have happened again. If this had happened and the ship had gone off course, it would have sounded an alarm and the incident would have been discovered.

It is also possible that it was human error.
February 1974 was the early days of rescue helicopters in Norway. The helicopter in Finnmark was stationed at Banak, which is far inland in Finnmark, not out on the coast. The response time was one hour, meaning the helicopter had to be in the air within an hour of the alarm going off. The response time requirement for rescue helicopters today (2024) is 15 minutes.

Furthermore, there were waves and poor visibility, so the helicopter could not fly the shortest route, but had to go along the coast. It therefore took just under two hours from the time the helicopter alarm went off until it arrived at the position of the casualty. Bas Gudmund was critical of the helicopter's location in the maritime statement, especially in the months when the Finnmark coast was full of capelin pairs.

In the media, the residents of Syltefjorden and the small fishing village of Nordfjord also criticize the rescue management since the people of Nordfjord were not notified. People from Nordfjord could have been on land at the "Lance II" within half an hour. This is explained by a misunderstanding between the Main Rescue Center, which coordinated the help at sea and in the air, and the police chief, who was supposed to coordinate on the land side. (It was blamed on a newly appointed police chief who was not aware of the available resources.) The residents of the fishing village pointed out that they could not say that more people would have been rescued, but with people in the water with the line that was thrown aboard the "Lance II", it was possible that more people could have been rescued.

In a newspaper article, addressed to the maritime authorities, Gudmund Skogvik said that when he jumped into the sea, the life jacket would slip over his head and off him. The life jacket had no straps to wear between his legs, and in the cold weather it was a challenge for Gudmund to be able to tighten the smooth nylon straps well enough. Gudmund asks that waist straps be made mandatory. Via via, Gudmund gets the answer that waist straps could make people who jumped into the sea sterile. Gudmund laconically commented on whether they thought it was worse to be dead than sterile….
Things don't get any better for Gudmund in 1999. He watches the news of the speedboat "Sleipner" sinking, killing 11 people. On television he sees that "Sleipner" had the same life jackets that "Lance II" had 25 years earlier.

Today (2024) there are straps under the waist on life jackets.
In the book "Cold Morning", skipper Per Sævik and mate Kåre Sævik on "Artus" are quoted as saying that "Lance II" had maximum bad luck. If the ship had hit land 50 – 100 meters further to starboard, they would have gone up on what looked like a sandy beach. If it had hit the same to port, they would have gone clear of the Syltefjord staurane.

Nearly 50 years after the dramatic morning on the Finnmark coast, I had a conversation with skipper Per Sævik on the "Artus" about the incident.

Since then, Per has been a fishing boat owner, started three offshore shipping companies. He has been the chairman and a member of the Storting for the Christian Democratic Party. He also led both the Fishing Boat Owners' Association and the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, and last but not least, started Havila Kystruten. In 2012, he was appointed a knight of the Order of St. Olav for his efforts in the shipping industry.

Per told calmly and in detail about that morning. "Artus" also came from Vadsø and had almost reached Båtsfjord when the distress call came. Per had been on duty during the night. "Artus" turned at once and set off at full speed towards Makkaur and the Syltefjord staurs.

Per spoke to "Lance II" several times on the trip, and at first they seemed so calm that he perhaps didn't fully understand the seriousness. Gradually, it was pointed out several times that this was about lives.
It was dark when they arrived, so they used the searchlight. They saw "Lance II" lying all the way up in the bay with its stern towards land. "Artus" considered it inadvisable to come all the way to the ship in the bay, they pumped out oil to calm the sea. The light boat with two men was launched. This went as close as possible and shot over a line that went over the wheelhouse roof. In the light from the searchlight they saw the people in the aftermast come down and try to tighten the line, but the wreck threw itself so hard that they could not do it before the line disappeared.

"Even if the men on board the Lance II had managed to get hold of the line, it is not at all certain that we would have been able to rescue them. The sea was heavy and breaking in several places, so it would have been tough to get anyone through the sea alive."

A while later we saw that two men had come ashore, but at about the same time the ship broke in front of the wheelhouse, and the entire ship went down in the blink of an eye.
It took another while for the helicopter from Banak to arrive. Then we saw that the two people on land were quickly picked up.
It was tough to be so close and no matter how hard we tried, we were powerless, we couldn't save the people despite being so close.
"We walked in the area throughout the morning and searched for survivors and dead," said Per Sævik.
The end of the conversation with Per Sævik was as follows:
"After a long and eventful life at sea and on land, this is the most defining experience that sits at the forefront of the cerebral cortex."

Sources:
The naval declaration after the sinking of Lance II
The book "Cold Morning" – Layton / Sætra
The newspapers Bladet Tromsø, Finnmark Dagblad, Harstad Tidene
Conversations and emails with Idar Eklund
Conversation with skipper Per Sævik on board "Havila Castor" 02.06.2022, as well as emails later.
SMS and conversation with Øyvind Sævik. On board "Artus" on his way to work as chief engineer on "Geitung".
Conversations and emails Anton Sævik