ANTARCTIC WHALERS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 35, 5 November 1928, Page 10

ANTARCTIC WHALERS

C. A. LARSEN DUE TO-DAY THE SHIP’S HISTORY The Norwegian whaling ship C. A. Larsen, from Norway via San Pedro, will arrive at Wellington at daybreak this morning and after medical inspection, will berth at Miramar Wharf to take in oil fuel and water. The big ship will sail probably to-morrow for Stewart Island to pick up her five whale chasers before starting for the Ross Sea. The Sir James Clark Ross, the other factory ship of the Ross Sea Whaling Company, was at Paterson’s Inlet last week coaling preparatory to leaving with her five chasers for the Antarctic. „ „ „ , This is the third voyage of the C. A. Larsen to the Antarctic. In 1926-27 she and the Sir James Clark Ross secured 786 whales yielding 70,300 barrels of oil, and last season they treated 1455 whales for 124,000 barrels of oil. When returning from the south the C. A. Larsen struck the rocks at the entrance to Paterson’s Inlet and had to be beached. Portion of the ship’s cargo was lost, but the bulk of it was pumped into a specially chartered tanker, the Spinanger, and taken to America. The C. A. Larsen was ultimately refloated and temporarily repaired in dock at Port Chalmers. She then proceeded to England where her builders, Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Ltd., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, had plates and frames cut in readiness for permanent repairs, which were speedily carried out. After a thorough overhaul the C. A. Larsen went to Sandefjord, Norway, to prepare for her present voyage. Formerly the British oil tanker Sau Gregorio, the Larsen is one of the largest whaling ships in the world. She is a floating refinery and can treat whole whales on her spacious decks. She is remarkable for the slipway in her bow up which 75-ton carcasses can be hauled on to her foredeck for flensing and cutting up. The big ship is named after the late Captain O. A. Larsen who commanded the Sir James Clark Ross on her first two voyages and who died on board that ship in the Ross Sea in 1924. Captain Larsen had a vast experience of whaling in the Arctic and Antarctic and other parts of the world. lie it was who commanded the Antarctic, in which the Swedish Antarctic expedition under Dr. Otto Nordenskjold left Gothenburg in October, 1901. After calling at the Falklands, Staten Island (near Cape Horn) and the South Shetland Islands, the ship went into the Weddell Sea where Nordenskjold and five men were landed on au island to spend the winter. When summer came the Antarctic did not appear and tlie party had to spend a second winter there. In the following spring, November, 1903, Captain Larsen with five of his men turned up at the hut. The Antarctic had been wrecked the previous year and the crew had to spend the winter in a stone hut which they built on an island. The whole expedition was rescued by the Argentine gunboat Uruguay, which had been sent to search for them.

In his book, “The South Pole,” the late Captain Amundsen says of Captain Larsen that “of all those who have visited the Antarctic regions in search of whales, he has unquestionably brought home the best and most abundant scientific results. To him we owe the discovery of large stretches of the east coast of Graham Laud, Kiug Oscar II Land and Foyn’s Land. He also discovered two active volcanoes and many groups of islands.”