Ghost ships of the past

Posted by Irene at 5:39 PM, July 2, 2004

Across from the whale watching company in the harbour lay the old Hvalur whaling fleet, four big black ships that haven’t been used for the last 16 years. Gianluca and I went there today to have a closer look. We found a gangway, and a lady on the quayside said that tourists go onboard all the time and that it was probably ok if we did.

- Iréne

We could reach two of the ships, both rather spooky in all their rustiness. We peeked in through the portholes, and Gianluca smiled when seeing the radio room: “this looks like the radio room on the ship where I first worked as a radio operator!”. The cabins looked cosy and still in pretty good shape: good old woodwork and brass. Also the deck was made of wood, starting to look pretty bad. The harpoons have been removed from the bow; the funnels and airframes were covered.

I wonder how many whales were dragged across the boards of this deck. Personally I don’t oppose whaling because I find whales magnificent and fascinating (they are!), and Greenpeace is not an animal rights organisation. Whale hunting is a threat to the biodiversity of our seas, especially in a time when whales are also threatened by toxic pollution, climate change and other factors.

We had a chat with the owner of the whale watching company across the quay, Gudmundur Gestsson. I asked him what he thought of having the old whaling ships just next to his boats. – I feel very good about that he said when tourists come I tell them that those are from the old times and this (making a gesture towards the whale watching boat) is the future. He also tells us that these are old ships, two were built in the forties and the other two are from the fifties, two are Norwegian built and two English.

Gudmundur has been trying to buy one of the whalers to turn it into a museum. The owner however does not want to sell: the ships were bought by his father who started whaling in 1946. It must cost him a small fortune to keep them alongside in the harbour year after year. According to Gudmundur the part of the ships facing the quayside get a coat of paint now and then which explains why they seemed to look even worse once we were onboard.

I turned around as we left, and looked at the rusty old ghost ships on one side and the whale watching tourists coming from the other.

Whaling belongs to the past.