The ship was built at Skålurens shipyard in Hardanger in 1911. The dimensions were 83,1 feet long and 20,6 feet wide. The main engine was a 50 hp steam engine, built at Brunholmen Mek. in Ålesund.

After a trip to Newfoundland with M/S "Polarstar" as a mess boy/catcher on a half-day basis this winter, I had gotten a taste of Arctic life. The season for trips to the Strait for seals and loggerhead sea otters was now approaching, and one day in late May my good friend, Ernst Hovlid, and I went to skipper Martinus Brandal and asked for a place.

It is the year 1920 at the end of March. The Arctic ships in Brandal have been working hard for several days getting ready for the Vesterisen and now most of the ships have set sail. Only one of them was a little behind, but today she too is finished and has cast off. – Three blasts on the whistle and there she sails out with the land well below, loaded with all the coal and provisions they must carry on such a trip. A beautiful ship with fine lines and thin, shining white at the masthead.

"Picking up the last five of the crew from "Asbjørn", while "Asbjørn", with a strong list and 10 degrees of propeller shear, was circling on a collision course, was not entirely easy"

By Johannes Bjarne Alme

Olaf Nedrelid, born in 1870, grew up on Nedrelid in Hjørungavåg. There he had two middle names and Olaf thus took the middle name Torsen. After he became a famous skipper, Olaf was referred to simply as "he Torsen".