{"id":2234,"date":"2016-11-04T22:34:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T22:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/?p=2234"},"modified":"2016-11-05T12:50:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-05T12:50:48","slug":"the-solglimt-rediscovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/2016\/11\/04\/the-solglimt-rediscovered\/","title":{"rendered":"The Solglimt rediscovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Norwegian sealer S.S. Solglimt<\/em> was deliberately beached in a sinking condition on 16 October 1908 in Ship’s Cove, Marion Island after hitting the then uncharted Solglimt Blinder a little way offshore.\u00a0 The whole ship\u2019s complement of around 75 men got ashore safely and erected huts to live in until they were rescued a month later by two sealers from Nova Scotia and taken to Durban, South Africa and thence on to Norway.<\/p>\n

In collaboration with Jaco Boshoff, Maritime Archaeologist, Social History Collections Department, Iziko Museums of South Africa<\/a> and with the help of museum colleagues in Norway, the Antarctic Legacy of South Africa has been researching the wrecking of the sealer.\u00a0 A multi-disciplinary approach is being taken that has included diving on the remains of the shipwreck in the cove, undertaking preliminary excavations in the \u201cshipwreck village\u201d ashore and searching the historical record, both published and unpublished.\u00a0 Much that is new has been learnt in this way.\u00a0 We have a full crew list for the vessel, a photograph of its Captain, Anders Harboe-Ree, and diary, newspaper and inquest accounts, some that have been translated from the original Norwegian, to flesh out the ship\u2019s voyage, wrecking and the life ashore of its crew and their eventual rescue.<\/p>\n

Yet all along what has been missing was good information on the sealing ship itself, including what she had looked like.\u00a0 We know the 1135-nett ton Solglimt <\/em>was built in 1881 as the S.S. Harbinger <\/em>by the United Kingdom\u2019s Sunderland Ship Building Company for the Harbinger Steam Ship Co. Ltd. \u00a0She measured 271 ft. (82.6 m) in length, 36.1 ft. (11 m) wide and had a depth of 20.6 ft. (6.3 m) with a two-cylinder compound engine of 170 horsepower built by North Eastern Engineering of Sunderland.\u00a0 At the time of her launching a local newspaper described her as \u201ca very handsome model, having [a] short full poop, raised quarterdeck, bridge and topgallant forecastle…\u201d and stated she is \u201cfitted in every detail with the latest improvements\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

No photographs of the ship at the time of her launch, nor the ship\u2019s plans have yet been found and a photograph unearthed in Norway of the ship, taken at the Crozets on her first southern sealing voyage, is an unsatisfactory one with her out of focus and far in the background as the photographer concentrated on a Wandering Albatross in the foreground.<\/p>\n

\"solglimt-at-crozets\"<\/a>
Solgimt<\/em> at Ile de la Possession, Iles Crozet, 1907\/1908; photograph by Anders Harboe-Ree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The breakthrough came at the Historical Antarctic Sealing Industry Conference in Cambridge, UK in September when I was put in contact with the Captain\u2019s grand-daughter Cathrine Harboe-Ree<\/a> who lives in Australia and is the University Librarian at Melbourne\u2019s Monash University (click here<\/a>).\u00a0 Since then has been a flow of e-mails between us with the water-colour painting of the wrecked Solglimt<\/em> and two photographs of the grounded ship in Ship\u2019s Cove by Captain Anders Harboe-Ree that Cathrine has inherited becoming available to ALSA.<\/p>\n

\"Solglimt<\/a>
The Solglimt<\/em> grounded in Ship’s Cove. Its stern has broken off and sunk, The three auxiliary boilers obvious in the painting (see below) appear to be missing, presumed lost overboard in rough seas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Solglimt<\/a>
Rough seas batter the Solglimt<\/em> in Ship’s Cove; photographs by Anders Harboe-Ree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps somewhere out there exists a photograph of the ship before she was wrecked and we will keep on looking for it.\u00a0 In the meantime the material obtained so far from Cathrine is a great leap forward in our knowledge of the Solglimt<\/em> wrecking.<\/p>\n

A following news item will look at the \u201cshipwreck village\u201d in Ship\u2019s Cove erected by the Solglimt<\/em>\u2019s crew with more fascinating historical photos obtained from Cathrine Harboe-Ree.<\/p>\n

\"DCIM100GOPRO\"<\/a>
Underwater photo of a Cochran boiler in Ship’s Cove, one of three auxiliary boilers found on the sea bottom around the wreck. The three conspicuous brown objects on the ship’s foredeck in the painting are believed to be these three boilers, possibly fitted to the ship to aid in trying-out elephant seal blubber aboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Selected Publications:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boshoff, J., van Niekerk, T. & Wares, H. 2015.\u00a0 Preliminary investigations on the wreck of the SS Solglimt<\/em>, Marion Island.\u00a0 \u00a0Bulletin of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology<\/em> 39: 53-59<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Galteland, O. 2013. \u00a0A\/S Kerguelen 1908 – 1921. \u00a0The Optimism, the Dreams – and the Dull Working Day<\/em>. \u00a0Sandefjord: Vestfjoldmuseene.\u00a0 72 pp.<\/p>\n

Marsh, J.H. 1948.\u00a0 \u00a0No Pathway Here<\/em>. \u00a0Cape Town: Howard B. Timmins.\u00a0 200 pp.<\/p>\n

Feature photograph:\u00a0 Water-colour (23 x 31 cm) of the grounded Solglimt<\/em> in Ship\u2019s Cove, Marion Island by the ship’s Captain, Anders Harboe-Ree, courtesy of Cathrine Harboe-Ree, the Captain’s grand-daughter<\/p>\n

\"anders-ree-025-1\"<\/a>
Captain Anders Harboe-Ree in \u00a01907 when 26 years old<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"cathrine-harboe-ree\"<\/a>
Cathrine Harboe-Ree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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John Cooper,<\/em> Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 05 November 2016<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Norwegian sealer S.S. Solglimt was deliberately beached in a sinking condition on 16 October 1908 in Ship’s Cove, Marion Island after hitting the then uncharted Solglimt Blinder a little way offshore.\u00a0 The whole ship\u2019s complement of around 75 men got ashore safely and erected huts to live in until they were rescued a month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9815,"featured_media":2238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3741,3256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marion-island","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/files\/2016\/11\/Solglimt-watercolour.shrunk.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZWWZ-A2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2234"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/antarcticlegacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}