Maud (ship)

File:Polarskipet Maud.jpg

Maud, 1918

The Maud, named for Queen Maud of Norway, was a ship built for Roald Amundsen for his second expedition to the Arctic. Designed for his intended voyage through the Northeast Passage, the vessel was specially built at a shipyard in Asker, Norway on the Oslofjord.

The Maud was launched in June 1916 and christened by Roald Amundsen by crushing a chunk of ice against her bow:

It is not my intention to dishonour the glorious grape, but already now you shall get the taste of your real environment. For the ice you have been built, and in the ice you shall stay most of your life, and in the ice you shall solve your tasks. With the permission of our queen, I christen you: Maud.

Career and fate

She lived up to her christening, for she lies still in the ice. Whereas other vessels designed for Amundsen's polar explorations, the Gjøa and Fram, have been preserved at the maritime museum at Bygdøy, the Maud was subject to a far less glamorous destiny.

File:Amundsen Maud 1998-06-28.jpg

The wreck of Maud near Cambridge Bay, (Victoria Island) in Canada's north.

After sailing through the Northeast Passage, which did not go as planned and took six years between 1918 and 1924, she ended up in Nome, Alaska and in August 1925 and was sold on behalf of Amundsen's creditors in Seattle, Washington.

The buyer was the Hudson's Bay Company which renamed her Baymaud. She was to be used as a supply vessel for Company outposts in Canada's western Arctic. However, in the winter of 1926 she was frozen in the ice at Cambridge Bay, where she sank in 1930.

The ship now lies just off the shore in the bay, across the frozen ice from Cambridge Bay's former Hudson's Bay Company store. Nearby is the Cambridge Bay LORAN Tower built in 1947.

Prior to her final voyage the Baymaud was given a refit in Vancouver, British Columbia. The work was supervised by Tom Hallidie, who later went on to design the Canadian Coast Guard Vessel St. Roch, based on the Maud.

In 1990 the ship was sold by the Hudson's Bay Company to Asker with the expectation that she would be returned to the town. Although a Cultural Properties Export permit was issued, the price tag to repair and move the ship was 230 million kroner ($43,200,000) and the permit expired.

Construction

The vessel was constructed of oak and had the following dimensions:

• Length: 36.5 m
• Witdt: 12.3 m
• Draft: 4.85 m
• Tonnage: 292 tons
• Engine: 240 hp (177 kW) semidiesel Bolinder engine

External links

• Maud (Norwegian) - Photos
• The wreckage of Baymaud