S/S Godthaab (Danish name for Nuuk) was built in 1897–98 at C. Christensen ship yard,

Sandefjord Sandefjord () is a city and the most populous municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The municipality of Sandefjord was established on 1 January 1838. The municipality of Sandar was merged into Sandefjord on 1 January 1969. On 1 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, for the

Royal Greenland Trading Department The Royal Greenland Trading Department ( da, Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel, KGH) was a Danish state enterprise charged with administering the realm's settlements and trade in Greenland. The company managed the government of Greenland from 177 ...

and was the company's first steam ship. The main task for the ship was sailing on the east

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

settlement

Angmassalik Ammassalik was one of two municipalities in Tunu, the former county of East Greenland − the other one being Illoqqortoormiut (further north). It was located in southeastern Greenland, and with an area of 232,100 km2, most of it on the ice sheet, ...

(now

Tasiilaq Tasiilaq, formerly Ammassalik and Angmagssalik, is a town in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland. With 1,985 inhabitants as of 2020, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, and the seventh-largest town in Green ...

) and was built for that purpose with a 240 HP engine and reinforced hull. Godthaab served as base for several expeditions in the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

, most notably the expeditions by

Lauge Koch Lauge Koch (5 July 1892 – 5 June 1964) was a Danish geologist and Arctic explorer. Biography Lauge Koch was born in 1892 to Karl and Elisabeth Koch. His development as a scientist was greatly influenced by his father's second cousin Johan Pet ...

between 1926 and 1934. Godthaab sailed for the

until it was sold in 1953 to the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

. Here it was refitted for herring fishery and renamed Hvitabjørn (polar bear). It was sunk in 1984 after being badly damaged by fire.

The Godthaab expedition

In 1928 Godthaab undertook a major hydrographical expedition in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, funded by the Danish Government and the

Carlsberg Foundation Carlsberg Foundation ( da, Carlsbergfondet) was founded by J. C. Jacobsen in 1876, by allocating some of his shares in the Carlsberg Brewery to fund and operate the Carlsberg Laboratory and the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Palace. ...

. This expedition, under the command Eigil Riis-Carstensen, captain in the Royal Danish Navy, studied the oceanography of the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay and closed the last major gap in the surveys of the waters around

. Scientists on the expedition were: Poul Lassenius Kramp (zoology), Paul Marinus Hansen (zoology), Svend Kühnel Hagen (chemistry), Alf Kiilerich (hydrography) and Gunnar Seidenfaden (botany). The expedition completed a number of transects across from the west Greenland Coast to the Canadian coast, sailed 11,000 nautical miles and made measurements at 188 hydrographical stations, down to a maximum depth of 3,500 m. Scientific results of the expedition is described in 37 papers, published under a common heading in the journal

Meddelelser om Grønland ''Meddelelser om Grønland'' ("''Communications on Greenland''") is a Danish scientific periodical which publishes scientific results from all fields of research on Greenland. It was established by Frederik Johnstrup and published as a single seri ...

External links

* http://www.lardex.net/framnesmekverksted/skipstekst/1898godthaap.htm

References

{{Reflist Research vessels of Denmark Arctic expeditions Ships built in Sandefjord 1898 ships