Nansenflua is an undersea rock in the northern part of Rekvedbukta off the southeastern coast of

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger ...

in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. The shoal is named after the ship HNoMS ''Fridtjof Nansen'', which sank after striking the previously uncharted rock in November 1940. Nansenflua is the only obstruction in Rekvedbukta. The name ''Nansenflua'' was introduced in charts published by the Norwegian Polar Institute in 1955, and is included as a recognized name in Anders K. Orvin's 1960 paper ''The place-names of Jan Mayen''. It follows a convention based on two then in force

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, dated 28 April 1933 and 31 May 1957, of using the

Nynorsk Nynorsk () () is one of the two written standards of the Norwegian language, the other being Bokmål. From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen's standard Norwegian language ( no, Landsmål) parallel to the Dano-N ...

grammatical form. The suffix "-a" in the feminine definite form was chosen, as no local dialect existed on Jan Mayen. The last part of the name, "flu(a)", means "rock awash", or "sunken rock". The geographical location is given by Orvin as , with an exactitude of 1'. The rock, located two meters under the surface, has a small top area and vertical sides of about twenty meters. It is located about one nautical mile from Eggøykalven and 1.7 nautical miles west-southwest of the peninsula Eggøya. In anything but completely calm weather conditions, Nansenflua is visible by waves being broken against it. The rock is part of the remains of a crater.

Shipwreck of HNoMS ''Fridtjof Nansen''

Under the command of the

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Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy ( no, Sjøforsvaret, , Sea defence) is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of Norway. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 in mobilized state, ...

, the offshore patrol vessel HNoMS ''Fridtjof Nansen'' visited Jan Mayen in September 1940, in order to destroy and evacuate the weather station northeast of Eggøya. The ship returned in November of the same year to disrupt German plans to re-establish a weather station on the island. Entering the bay of Rekvedbukta on 8 November 1940 in calm weather, the ship collided with the hitherto unknown shoal, rapidly heeling 45°. The whole crew of 66 entered the lifeboats. The boats reached the shore during darkness, and by the next morning the ship had sunk. Four days later the shipwrecked crew was rescued by the naval trawler HNoMS ''Honningsvåg'' and brought to

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. The wreck of ''Fridtjof Nansen'', which had a length of and a displacement of , is probably still located near the rock.

References

{{Reflist Landforms of Jan Mayen Rock formations of Norway