Where more than a hundred years ago brave men risked their lives for great honour and little reward, today the government worries about small bumps: "Take care of your head! Don't climb into the rigging! Only go below deck if you can cross this beam! Climb down the companionways backwards!" If you want to board Roald Amundsen's Hardangerjakt "Gjøa" (pronounced Jöa) at the Frammuseum in Oslo, you have to follow a lot of rules, which are listed on bright yellow signs.
Midships to starboard, visitors reach the deck of the approximately 22 metre long wooden ship and first stand in front of a massive winch. Behind it, flanked by two wooden barrels, is the engine room hatch with its wooden flaps in front of the superstructure of the captain's cabin. As in Amundsen's time, a picture of his idol Nansen still hangs on the bulkhead of the chamber. Two bunks, a table, a stove, a bench and - of course - the Norwegian flag.
The beginnings of Roald Amundsen
Long before Roald Amundsen sailed to fame and honour with his expedition yacht "Gjøa", he was already devouring reports by polar explorers as a teenager and decided to become one himself. He was particularly fascinated by the expeditions of Sir John Franklin. In his last - and failed - attempt to crack the Northwest Passage, all 129 participants perished in 1845.
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The two ships used, "HMS Erebus" and "HMS Terror", as well as the crew were clearly too large, Amundsen concluded. He also recognised a weak point in several Arctic expeditions in the fact that, with the usual division of labour between an expedition leader and a ship's captain, these two leaders could well disagree. "That's why I was determined not to lead an expedition before I could avoid this mistake. My whole endeavour was now directed towards acquiring the necessary experience in ship management myself and training as a captain so that I could lead my expedition not only as an explorer but also as a skipper," he wrote in his later report on his voyage on the "Gjøa".
Amundsen and his expedition yacht
After the death of his mother, the young Amundsen abandoned his medical studies and went to sea on whale and seal hunters. He obtained his helmsman's licence and accompanied the Belgian Adriaan de Gerlache on the "Belgica" on his rather bungling Antarctic expedition. When the then 28-year-old Amundsen signed the purchase contract for the "Gjøa" on 28 March 1901, he had his captain's licence.
In the 19th century, hundreds of Hardangerjakten sailed along the Norwegian coast. As cargo ships, the small, manoeuvrable vessels mostly transported salted herring from the north to the south of the country and grain on the way back in the other direction. Amundsens Jakt bears the first name of the first owner's wife, Gjøa Sexe.
Asbjørn Sexe ordered the expedition yacht from the shipyard of Knut Johannesson Skaala Nes in 1872. From April to October 1873, the "Gjøa" was built at the shipyard of "Jøra-Knut" in Rosendal on the Hardangerfjord, according to the old ship's papers. Amundsen always stated 1872 as the year of construction. Morten Hesthammer, deputy director of the Hardanger Fartøyvern Centre, assumes that he liked the idea of sailing a ship that was just as old as he was.
The "Gjøa" is being extensively renovated
This centre for ship preservation carried out the extensive renovation of the "Gjøa" in 2017. Hesthammer led the work. He collected information about the ship from various archives. Like most Hardangerjakten, "Gjøa" was also used as a cargo ship by its first owner, Asbjørn Sexe. In the winter months, it travelled to northern Norway. As soon as the cod caught there had dried on the cliffs, Sexe sailed his cargo to more southerly harbours in Norway or Sweden, but also called at Riga and Brest.
In 1882, Sexe ran his Hardangerjakt aground near Kabelvåg in the Lofoten Islands. The wreck was purchased two years later by the Tromsø captain Hans Christian Johannesen for 700 Norwegian kroner. After repairs, he refitted the ship as a seal trawler and sailed the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Russia for the next 16 years.
Born in 1846, Johannesen began sailing the Arctic waters at the age of 16 as a crew member on his father's "Lydianna". Long since a captain, he supported Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld at the start of his historic voyage through the Northeast Passage in 1878. Fridtjof Nansen (unsuccessfully) courted him as captain for the legendary drift voyage with the "Fram" in the Arctic ice. Johannesen and his ship enjoyed an impeccable reputation when he offered the "Gjøa" for sale.
In 1901, Amundsen paid 9500 Norwegian kroner for the Hardangerjakt, which was equipped for seal hunting, and set off with Johannesen for one last fishing season - to earn money and learn from the experienced ice-sea skipper.
The greatest success with the "Gjøa"
Roald Amundsen was satisfied with his expedition yacht. He had the hull further strengthened and in 1902 had a 13 hp DAN glow-head engine - one of the first to be fitted to a ship in Norway - installed. From 1903 to 1906, Amundsen and six crew members managed the first complete crossing of the Northwest Passage despite grounding, fire on board and the death of a crew member (see info below). "If I favour a small ship like this, it's because the waterways we'll be using are often shallow and narrow. It is therefore advisable to have a vessel with a shallow draught that can be manoeuvred on the spot, so to speak," he wrote in the expedition report.
Yes, the expedition yacht "Gjøa" is relatively small. There is a sparse superstructure on deck amidships. The team of restorers from Norheimsund reconstructed the dismountable galley using old exterior photographs. Cook Adolf Henrik Lindstrøm had to prepare meals for seven people while kneeling in this doll's house, which was barely 1.50 metres high and almost 1.80 metres wide.
Roald Amundsen wanted to sail his expedition yacht "Gjøa" back to Norway after crossing the passage in 1906. However, his mentor Fridtjof Nansen talked him out of it because he thought rounding Cape Horn was too dangerous (the Panama Canal was not opened until 1914). So the Hardangerjakt stayed behind at the naval station in San Francisco.
The further years of the expedition yacht
She was lifted ashore on 5 July 1909 and put on display in Golden Gate Park. She was a great attraction there. However, the ship suffered considerably from the weather, vandalism and souvenir hunters. The burning of the Jakt was considered, but thanks to various donations, restoration work began in 1939 and was only completed after the Second World War. Historical authenticity did not play a major role. In the decades that followed, the ship again deteriorated visibly and was severely affected by dry rot.
A Norwegian "Gjøa" committee was founded in 1971 to preserve the national monument in the long term. Norway bought the ship back in 1972 and had it brought to Oslo on the deck of the freighter "Star Billabong". There it was officially handed over to the Norwegian Maritime Museum (NMM) and placed in front of the museum on Bygdøy Museum Island. The Djupevåg shipyard in Hardanger restored everything above the waterline until 1974. The now retired shipyard manager Kristian Djupevåg was involved in the restoration in 2017 as a consultant.
The "Gjøa" comes to the museum
In May 2009, the direct neighbour Frammuseum took over the "Gjøa" from the Maritime Museum in order to become an even more complete polar museum. The 145-year-old "maritime monument of national importance" is now housed in a purpose-built building next to a map of the North Pole and stuffed polar bears. At the beginning of January 2017, the twelve-strong team from the Hardanger Fartøyvernsenter led by Morten Hesthammer began to restore the "Gjøa" as closely as possible to its condition during its voyage through the Northwest Passage. "We're not removing anything, we're just adding new material so that she won't deform," said Hesthammer, describing his renovation approach. The boatbuilders at the Fartøyvernsenter were the ideal people for the work - after all, the centre was created in 1984 from the salvage of the red Hardangerjakt "Mathilde", built in 1884. "Mathilde" is so similar to the "Gjøa" that she served as a double in the British television documentary "The search for the Nordwest Passage".
On board, a companionway leads from the galley down to the hold, where a lot of pine wood from high altitudes was used for reinforcement. Frames, beam walkways and massive knees were added and planked from the inside. In the hold floor, Plexiglas provides a clear view of the original frames from 1873 and those that were installed during the earlier refurbishments. On the outside, "Gjøa" was given back her "ice skin". To achieve this, a total of four additional layers of planks were applied to the hull - held in place by around 10,000 screws and countless nails. Then the characteristic green paint was renewed.
The expedition yacht can be marvelled at in many ways
The original 13 hp DAN glow-head engine of the "Gjøa" was stored in the Norwegian Maritime Museum. The engine from 1902 came back on board. It is in its original place in the hull of the expedition yacht. Behind a Plexiglas partition wall, the engine can be admired alongside furs, tools, tin cans and a sea chest.
A steep staircase leads up to the deck through the forecastle, where the crew berths are located. The fungus-infested wooden parts of the original anchor winch, which was also stored in the NMM archive, have been replaced. The simple outhouse is located on the smooth, continuous deck. The bowsprit and jib boom protrude far beyond the bow. The jib, inner and outer jibs are neatly packed and barely obstruct the view on deck. The usual square gaff topsail, the crow's nest and the mast yard are missing, as the mast does not have its original length due to the roof of the building. Nevertheless, the reefed gaff mainsail, the broad-jib yard, ropes and wooden blocks give the impression that "Gjøa" could actually cast off again.
"It was a pleasure to restore this icon to almost the same condition it was in when it belonged to Amundsen," said Morten Hesthammer on 15 September 2017. Since then, the expedition yacht "Gjøa" has been open to museum visitors: for a look back at an impressive chapter in maritime history. Incidentally, Roald Amundsen remained attached to his first ship for the rest of his life. On 17 June 1928, he celebrated the 25th anniversary of the start of the voyage through the Northwest Passage.
The next day, he set off on his rescue mission for the missing Italian polar explorer Umberto Nobile - and never returned.
Technical data expedition yacht "Gjøa"
- Year of construction: 1873
- Shipyard: Knut Johannesson
- Type: Hardangerjakt
- Construction method: Kraweelbeplankt
- Hull length: 21.85 m
- Total length: 30.55 m
- Width: 6.40 m
- Draught: 2.20 m
- Mast height above deck: 24.00 m
- Sail area: Almost 400 m²
- Sails: Gaff mainsail and topsail, mars, broad-jib, jib, outer and inner jib
- Engine: (DAN) 13 HP
- Location: Oslo (www.frammuseum.no)
