# Greenland Halibutting Venture



## peter drake (Jan 16, 2009)

I have just read a little book byAlan Wilkinson about Halibut fishing off Greenland by ships mainly from Hull.There were two mother ships and about twenty smaller vessels. The fish were caught by long lineing from dories. The round trip from Hull was about 3200 miles. The trade fizzled out in 1935 when the price of fish collapsed. Does anyone have any information.

Pete


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## birgir (Sep 4, 2006)

How detailed is Wilkinssons account? I can only add some details regarding one year, 1926 of that is of any use.

Birgir Thorisson


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## peter drake (Jan 16, 2009)

Hi Birgir
Not mutch detail .The trade was started by Engvald Baldersheim from Bergen in 1924 . Most of the smaller ships seem to have been owned by Hellyer Bros.
The book also details the tonnage caught each year between 1925 & 1935. Apart from the owners there is very little mention of the skippers and men that sailed the ships and dories. Where they from Norway or England?
Pete


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## gil mayes (Nov 20, 2006)

Agree with Peter. 'GENI On The Line' by A. Wilkinson does not give a lot of detail of the men involved either from Norway or Hull. Also pursuing this fishery were trawlers converted to liners from Grimsby. 
Gil.


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## birgir (Sep 4, 2006)

Generally speaking, the fishermen were from Norway, and maybe from the Faroes, except in 1927. 

Here are some notes from the biography of an icelandic Hellyer skipper, Tryggvi Ofeigsson.
A transport trip by the trawler Imperialist H-143 to Greenland in 1926, and a period as mother ship for six dories in 1927.

(Tryggvi Ofeigsson, was then fishing master of the ship, but only "navigating master" on the 1926 trip. According to him, british trawler-skippers were not certified to take ships to the west of Greenland, so Hellyer hired merchant skippers for the trawlers, but knowing that Ofeigsson was supposed to be a good navigator, kept him on as such. However, because the insurance company demanded that they proceed 120 miles south of Cape Farwel before turning east, the return trip was mostly by dead reckoning. Ofeigsson´s navigating turned out to be inch-perfect, which so pleased Orlando Hellyer, that he donated to him a sextant of a superior make.)

Hellyer-brothers of Hull were behind the enterprize. The Helder was the mothership for the dories that year (1926). A ship named Faustina was used for searching for fish. 6 trawlers were used to transport the catch to the british market. Imperialist departed Hafnarfjordur, Iceland on july 31, 1926, with Owen Hellyer onboard. He transferred to the Helder, but his brother Orlando returned to Britain with the ship. They had to wait for the dories providing enough cargo, so they experimented with trawling, and longlining, with very limited results. The cargo of white halibut fetched a good price, but "the Hellyer-brothers never divulged more information than they absolutely had to" so Ofeigsson never knew how much it made. This tidbit is interesting, because it seems that Ofeigsson had a closer personal relationship with Owen and Orlando Hellyer, than most skippers. He reports, that he spent hours in their office, talking business with them, and claims that they taught him how to run a trawler company, which stood him in good stead later on, when he became the biggest private trawler owner in Iceland after WW2.

Tryggvi Ofeigsson was only a mate, with only a few trips as skipper under his belt, when he was hand-picked by Orlando Hellyer as fishing master of the Imperialist, then the biggest and most expensive trawler in Britain. He emerged as a top fishermen from the outset. His biography is to my knowledge the best account of the making of a top skipper. In short, his method was to trail closely the best in the business, Thorarinn Olgeirsson. 

In 1927 Hellyer had two mother ships, Actic Queen and Helder, and about 50 dories. This year alone, Icelandic fishermen manned six dories, operated from the Imperialist, fishing master Tryggvi Ofeigsson. There were 5 men to a dory, total of 30, plus 4 icelanders, (Ofeigsson, an engine repair man, a radio operator, and an assistant cook) and the british crew of seven abord the Imperialist. (Besides the "productive" men, 2 engineers, 2 stokers, and the cook, Ofeigsson was stuck with a british flag-captain, and flag-mate, because Imperialist was under british flag. These guys "never did a days work" to the great annoyance of Ofeigsson, who always drove his crew very hard.)
The catch was either frozen abord the big motherships, or transported by trawlers to Britain. The dories had motors. 
Ofeigsson mentions two particular memorable aspects to the stay there (June-november). One was that only halibut was taken, all the cod was thrown back to the sea, and that was huge amount, and secondly, there was unbelievable amount of parasitic attack on the fish on the line, often only the bones remained of the fish, that had been caught on the line, if it was left too long in the sea.

The contract between the dory-fishermen, and Hellyers is printed as an appendix to Ofeigsson´s biography. It is in icelandic, and is four page long. Ofeigsson maintains that they made good money, but admits that there were differences of opinion about that. 

Birgir Thorisson


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## peter drake (Jan 16, 2009)

Thanks for the information Birgir
Pete


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## Roger Griffiths (Feb 10, 2006)

ARCTIC QUEEN ex VARASI official number 127974 and ARCTIC PRINCE ex HELDER 160816 were the two Mother ships.
BORIDINO 132268 and MOURINO 123266 both Wilson Line, were chartered to ferry out provisions and any crew replacements and bring consignments of fish back to Hull.
Hull Maritime Museum may be able to give you more info.

Roger


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## nicolina (Jun 17, 2007)

Halibut fishing at Greenland from big mother/freezing ships started with the ex cargo ship Helder bougth and fitted out by Hellyer Bros of Hull.
First Season was in June 1926 when she went up to Greenland carrying a crew of 240 men mostly Norwegians and 48 .dories.
She also had steam liners supplying her with halibuts as well as cargo ships for bringing up supplies e.t.c.
She was back in HUll in October with 650 Ton of frozen halibuts.
She made voyages to Greenland 1927 1928 1929 .
She was R/N Arctic Prince in 1929.
Laid up in Hull from June 1930 until April 1932 when she undertook another voyage to Greenland.
On her 1933 Voyage she made an crew switch by carrying 200 New Foundlanders instead of Norwegians.
Her final Greenland voyage was in 1935 and in 1936 she was sold to Russia.

The Hellyer Bros did by another ship and converted it for halibut fishing at Greenland she was named Arctic Queen.
She went on her first Greenland voyage in August 1928 carrying a crew of 440 men and 50 dories and she was back in Hull after just one month.
Suppose it was shake down/trial trip !!!.
After that year she sailed late April early May up to Greenland every year until her last voyage in 1934.
She must have had carriers and other cathers to supply her with halibuts coal water e.t.c.
When back in UK the ships unloaded around 30 ton of halibuts a day to thaw and sell them when thawed as demand for halibuts where high and prices good.
Sold to Russia in 1935.

Another British mothership operation of Greenland was by the converted Northland owned by an Anglo-Norwegian-American consortium.
Her British participants where Associated Fisheries Ltd London/Grimsby(William Bennet) and Richard Irwin Of Aberdeen.
She did not carry dories but had an fleet of steam trawlers/liners to supply her with halibuts as well as carrying them to the market.
Her crew consisted of around 300 men.
Also accompanying her was the collier Kamir carrying coal on the outward voyage and fish on her home voyage.
First landing from her was by Aberdeen tawler Ben Meidi landing 50 ton of halibut on the Aberdeen fish market on June 21 1930 and she was back in Grimsby on the 28 of July with another landing.
Her fish was put onboard in frozen condition from the Northland. and did thaw upp on her way to the market
The whole operation lasted only one season as Irvins of Aberdeen withdraw from the consortium in August and with them most of the steam trawlers so it became an poor season.
The Kamir did bring home 600 ton of salted cod from this first venture.
In the Atumn/Winter 1930 she was reported to be handling fish of West Africa and landing into Las Palmas.

By 1931 Associated/Bill Bennet and the Norwegian Whaling company A/S Thor Dahl had gained control of the Company and the Northland was R/N Thorland and after some conversion she went on her firts Greenland voyage in 1932.
She was accompanied by 8 ships from The London Whaling Co ???
Suppose that it was whale catchers used for fleeting e.t.c. as she did carrying dories now.
She was still dispensing halibuts in the spring of 1933 so it seems as she had an reasonable first trip.
Went to Greenland in 1933 as well as 1934 when she in the Atumn and Winter laid in Great Yarmouth freezing herrings from the drifters.
In October 1937 she came back from her last 6 months voyage to Greenland where she was supplied with fish from Norwegian manned doris.
This ended a fishery started 11 years before by the Helder and as the halibut stocks where nearly depleted at that time it was not economical viable to continue this kind of fishing operations.
This fishery did employ fishermen from the UK Norway New Foundland Iceland as well as the Faroes and very little has been written about it.
Some infos are in the book: Freezing Fish at Sea by J J Waterman published by HMSO in 1987 and this is some of it extracted by me.


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## gil mayes (Nov 20, 2006)

First class information Birgir, very many thanks.
Gil.


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## mattarosa (Mar 19, 2006)

I think we are very lucky to have members like Birgir and Nicolina who can provide information from sources not easily accessible to any of us in the UK.


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## salzmann (Feb 14, 2016)

*Arctic Prince*

A picture of the Hellyer Bros Arctic Prince hangs proudly on the wall in my house in Scheveningen. She started her life as ss Madura in1898. Built in Amsterdam for the SMN company. My grandfather was her first captain. She was sold to another dutch company as Sirius in 1912. In 1915 as Helder to Norway. Around 1928 as Arctic Prince to Hull and in 1936 as Komsomolets Arktiki to Russia.
Regards,
Jan


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