The Kingfisher

First time on a seal hunt in 1918.

On their way to seal hunting in the White Sea in 1929, the "Isfuglen" ran aground in the snow at Rørvik. The ship got underway at night when the wind increased to a strong storm. They had engine problems and could not prevent the ship from drifting ashore. They were lucky, however, when it turned out that the ship had landed on fine clay bottom and only part of the straw keel was missing, and the sailing could continue. They reached the ice edge outside Cape Svatoj on March 27, and the ship immediately began to work its way through the ice. The ice was dense, but it loosened with each change in the current.

But the currents could also be dangerous here, and the "Ice Bird" was carried by the current quite close to land at Kachkov, where the ship froze on April 2. They lay like this for 3 days before some of the ice was carried away, but they were subjected to some twisting.

On the night of April 6th, the "Isfuglen" is still stuck in the same way, but at 01:00 the ice breaks loose on the entire starboard side and the pressure on the ship's side increases. Then, at 02:00 a large floe of ice comes sailing in and hits the entire starboard side from the main hatch to the middle forward of the cabin.

The pressure is so great that ice debris comes through the side of the ship and into the room.

With such extensive damage, the crew knows that when the ice breaks, the ship will sink. They have no choice but to gather food and clothing to walk on the ice. At 09 a.m. on April 6, the "Isfuglen" sank and the shipwrecked crew began to walk across the ice in the direction of Gorodetskij lighthouse, about 3-4 miles away. They arrived at 17 p.m.