Puntos clave
- In November 1926 a German steam trawler struck a Trondheim steamer in Kagsundet and sank her. Three courts in two countries disagreed about whose fault it was, and the case was still being argued six years later.
- Papers between 1932 and 1939 report at least five vessels aground in Kagsundet, among them two German trawlers homeward from the White Sea and a ship of three thousand five hundred tons.
- The same strait is where the coastal steamers went when the weather turned. In December 1936 two of them lay anchored in it together, waiting out a storm.
- In 1933 a paper reported patches of large herring in Kagsundet with no boats there to take them. In 1934 several people at Lauksund watched an aeroplane nobody could identify fly south through the sound.
Where the boat is when nothing seems to be happening
A whale safari out of Tromso spends a lot of its day in transit, and the stretch that looks most like empty water is the run north-east toward Skjervoy and the mouth of the Lyngen fjord. Somewhere in there the boat threads Kagsundet, the sound between Kagen island and the mainland shore.
It reads as scenery. It did not read that way to anyone steering a loaded ship through it in the 1930s. The Norwegian press of that decade returns to this one sound again and again, and almost never for a happy reason.
None of it is signposted. All of it happened in water the boat crosses in about the time it takes to drink a coffee.
The collision nobody could agree about
The worst of it happened on a November night in 1926. Lofotposten, reporting the case in 1932, set out the bare facts: the steam trawler Kapp Kanin of Wesermunde collided with the steamship Sulen of Trondheim in Kagsundet, and Sulen went to the bottom. [1]
What followed took years. Lofotposten had reported in 1930 that Lyngen district court found the trawler liable for damages. [2] Then, as the same paper explained in 1932, the maritime court in Bremerhaven reached the opposite conclusion and cleared Kapp Kanin of blame altogether, resting the decision largely on how Kagsundet is classified under the rules of the road at sea. [3] In November 1932 Nordlys reported that the Norwegian Supreme Court had finally given judgement in the case. [4]
Strip away the law and one detail stays: two experienced crews, in a sound both would have known, managed to run into each other in the dark. That is what a narrow channel with a fast tide does to traffic.
The sound that appears in the Norwegian press between 1926 and 1939 as a collision, five groundings, two storm anchorages, a herring sighting and an aeroplane nobody could name.
The groundings, in the order the papers reported them
In February 1932 Lofotposten carried word from Tromso that the Hamburg trawler Henny Pickenpack, homeward from the White Sea with six hundred baskets of fish, had grounded in Kagsundet the previous day and been holed. [5] Two years later, in January 1934, the same paper reported that the German trawler Julius Pickenpack was aground in Kagsundet north of Tromso and reported flooded, with the salvage boats Ula and Jason working on her. [6]
The following month Lofotposten reported that repair of the considerable damage the coastal liner Tore Hund had taken grounding in Kagsundet had been given to the mechanical yard at Bodo, the ship having been temporarily sealed. [7] In October 1936 Harstad Tidende relayed a message from a captain that the Navarra, a ship of three thousand five hundred tons, had taken the ground in the sound. [8] In March 1939 Tromso Stiftstidende reported that the Varangerfjell, grounded in Kagsundet, had come in to Tromso under tow by the Staerkodder with damage forward. [9]
Not every one of them was a disaster. Morgenavisen, on the same October day in 1936, reported a vessel aground close by, but on sand, with her captain confident she would come off unaided. [10] The difference between a bad afternoon and a lost ship in this sound is what the bottom happens to be made of where you stop.
The other half of the story: it is also shelter
A sound that catches ships is also a sound that protects them, and the archive is just as clear about that. At the end of December 1936 Vestfinmarken described a storm building until the Prinsesse Ragnhild had to look for shelter and anchored up in Kagsundet until the worst of it passed. The Richard With was lying there too. [11]
In February 1933 the paper Tromso reported a vessel stopped for several hours in Kagsundet and at Nikkeby by snow so thick she could not go on. [15] Nobody ran aground. They simply stopped, in the one place along that coast where stopping is sensible.
That is worth knowing on a whale safari, because it is the same logic your skipper uses. Northern Norwegian sailing has never been about beating the weather. It is about knowing where the sheltered water is.
Herring, an aeroplane, and a transfer at sea
In November 1933 the paper Tromso passed on word from Nikkeby that several patches of large herring had been sighted in Kagsundet the day before, and that there were no seine boats anywhere near to take them. [14] That single line explains why a whale safari comes this way at all. Herring gather in these sounds in winter, and the whales follow the herring.
The strangest entry is from February 1934, when Nordlys printed a report from Lauksund in Skjervoy: on the Thursday evening, around half past seven, several reliable people had watched an aeroplane pass southward through Kagsundet. [13] It belongs to the wave of unexplained night flights that northern Norway argued about for two winters, and the paper's careful phrase, several reliable people, is doing a lot of work.
And in June 1938 the paper Tromso recorded something that sounds impossible now and was routine then: a couple of passengers flew on with the aeroplane as far as Kagsundet, where they were put aboard the coastal steamer. [12] A seaplane, a sound, a liner, and a transfer in open water.
Thirteen years in one sound
1926: the Sulen sinks
The steam trawler Kapp Kanin of Wesermunde strikes the Trondheim steamer Sulen in Kagsundet and sends her to the bottom. [1]
1930: the district court rules
Lyngen district court finds the trawler liable for damages. [2]
1932: Bremerhaven disagrees
The German maritime court clears Kapp Kanin entirely, on how Kagsundet is classed under the rules of the road. [3]
1932: the Henny Pickenpack
Homeward from the White Sea with six hundred baskets of fish, the Hamburg trawler grounds in the sound and is holed. [5]
1932: judgement in Oslo
The Supreme Court gives its ruling on the collision, six years after the night itself. [4]
1933: herring, unattended
Patches of large herring are seen in Kagsundet with no seine boats present. [14]
1934: the aeroplane
Several people at Lauksund watch an unidentified aircraft fly south through the sound on a Thursday evening. [13]
1934: the Julius Pickenpack
A second German trawler grounds and floods; two salvage boats work on her. [6]
1934: the Tore Hund
The coastal liner is sealed temporarily and sent to Bodo for repair after grounding here. [7]
1936: the Navarra
A ship of three thousand five hundred tons takes the ground in the sound. [8]
1936: two liners at anchor
The Prinsesse Ragnhild and the Richard With ride out a storm inside Kagsundet. [11]
1938: a transfer at sea
Passengers fly on to Kagsundet and are put aboard the coastal steamer there. [12]
1939: the Varangerfjell
Towed in to Tromso by the Staerkodder with damage forward after grounding in the sound. [9]
