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D/S Profit To Profit on the "Ships starting with P" page. Manager: Jacob Odland S. S., Haugesund Delivered from Laxevaag Maskin- og Jernskibsbyggeri, Bergen in Febr.-1918 as Utsire to D/S A/S John K. Haaland, Haugesund. 1613 gt, 932 net, 2400 tdwt, 246.2' x 37.9' x 15.6', Triple exp. 167 nhp (Laxevaag). Purchased in Oct.-1926 by D/S A/S Produce (H. M. Wrangell & Co. A/S), Haugesund, renamed Profit. Management taken over by Jacob Odland in Jan.-1938. Captain: Martin Kolstø. Her voyages are listed on this original document received from the Norwegian National Archives. Please compare the above voyages with Arnold Hague's Voyage Record below.
(Received from Don Kindell - His source: The late Arnold Hague's database). Follow the convoy links provided for more information on each. Errors may exist, and some voyages are missing.
Profit was at Finneidet, Norway on May 15-1940, then proceeded to Svalbard for coal, but in the meantime Norway capitulated so the captain chose to take her to the U.K. on June 9, and she thereby ended up in Allied service. This does not quite match up with the details found on the archive document, though she may have been to the U.K. and travelled from there to Iceland later? She made a voyage from Reykjavik to Halifax in July that year; I have no convoy information for this voyage, perhaps she had sailed independently. She arrived Halifax on July 18 and now appears to have remained there for quite a long time; departure is given as Sept. 7 when she proceeded to Sydney, C.B. in order to join the slow Convoy SC 4 from there on Sept. 10, along with a large number of Norwegian ships. Profit was bound for Clyde and Preston with a cargo of lumber. In Dec.-1940, she's listed, together with Andrea Brøvig, Brisk, Elg, Havørn, Malmanger, Skrim and Solhavn, in Convoy OB 252, which originated in Liverpool on Nov. 30 and dispersed Dec. 4. No destination is given for Profit, but according to the archive document she arrived St. John's, N.F. on Dec. 23, having started out from Oban. More information on this convoy is available via the external link provided in the table above. From St. John's, she later made a voyage to New York, remaining there for about a month (again, see the archive document) before proceeding to St. John, N.B. then on to Halifax, where she arrived Febr. 21-1941. With a cargo of lumber for Boston, Lincs., she was scheduled for the slow Halifax-U.K. Convoy SC 24 on Febr. 28, but instead joined the next convoy on March 10, SC 25; her destination is now given as London. Both these convoys had several Norwegian ships, as will be seen when following the links. More information on all the other Norwegian ships named here is available via the alphabet index at the end of this page, or go to the Master Ship Index.
Profit had left Southend for Hull in ballast on Apr. 17-1941 and struck a mine about 4 hours after departure. For this voyage, A. Hague has included her, together with Bonde, Diana, Eikhaug, Gudrun, Inger Lise, Lyng, Rimac, Roy, Selvik, Solhavn and Varøy, in Convoy EC 8 (external link). The explosion occurred amidships, blowing the upper bridge and port boatdeck as well as the port lifeboat away, breaking the masts where Able Seaman Olaf Olafsen and Ordinary Seaman Ivar Sevaldsen were sitting (painting - both injured, but survived - Olaf Olafsen's other ships are listed on this external page). The 2nd mate and 5 men launched the starboard boat but fell in the water when it got caught. The ship stayed afloat for 2 minutes before capsizing and disappearing, pulling some men with her as she went down. 2 lifeboats and 2 British destroyers, one of them being HMS Wallace, came out and rescued 5 men from the water, as well as Halfdan L. Myrseth who had managed to get on a raft. 3 were taken to hospital. Other survivors were a Canadian ordinary seaman by the last name of Waggstaffe, Donkeyman Aksel Olsen and Stoker John Dyson. The captain, 7 other Norwegians, 3 Swedish and 1 British were either killed in the explosion, or drowned as the ship went down (51 47 27N 01 30 33E). I've received an E-mail from Michael Telford, England, who says he believes the British casualty must have been his wife's uncle, Arthur Beeney. He knows he died when Profit was lost, and since there was only 1 British casualty, we can assume this is correct. With the tireless efforts of Billy McGee, UK, he has now finally (2014) been accepted for commemoration (external link) by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The following are commemorated at the Memorial for Seamen in Stavern, Norway - see link below (I'm not sure if they all died in the above indicent): A visitor to my website has told me that "Shipwreck Index of the British Isles" says the wreck of Profit was dispersed by explosives at Barrow Deep, Thames Estuary. Related external link: Back to Profit on the "Ships starting with P" page. The text on this page was compiled with the help of: "Våre gamle skip", Leif M. Bjørkelund & E. H. Kongshavn,"Nortraships flåte", J. R. Hegland, "Sjøforklaringer fra 2. verdenskrig", Vol II, Norwegian Maritime Museum - (ref. My sources).
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