Owner: Universal Shipping Co. A/S
Manager: A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S, Oslo
Tonnage: 9916 gt

Built by Deutsche Werft AG, Betrieb Finkenwärder, Hamburg in 1937.

Captain from March-1942 was Trygve Eide, who had previously been the captain of Stiklestad.
1st mate (and radio operator) on this ship when the war started was Thorvald Andreassen, who later became her captain.

Her voyages are listed on these original images from the Norwegian National Archives:
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4

Follow the convoy links provided for more information on each.

As will be seen when going to Page 1, Seirstad arrived Adelaide on Apr. 9-1940, the day of the German invasion of Norway. Her 1941 voyages also start on this document, continuing on Page 2.

In Dec.-1941, she was in Singapore, later sailing to Sydney and Brisbane, then back to Sydney and on to Fremantle, where she arrived Jan. 25-1942 (see Page 2 above). She was 1 of 4 Norwegian tankers in Convoy MS 3, departing Fremantle on Jan. 30 to pick up as much oil as possible in Palembang. In addition to Seirstad, they were Erling Brøvig, Elsa and Herborg. This was around the time that the Japanese attacked Sumatra with Palembang as their main goal. Around Febr. 12 all the ships in Palembang got the order to sail, as an attack was imminent. That night the Banka Straits was full of ships of all types, trying to retreat ahead of the Japanese threat. On Friday the 13th the convoy of tankers was out of the Straits and headed for Batavia, with the British destroyers Jupiter and Stronghold as escorts, when attacked by at least 8 aircraft. A bomb detonated in the sea close to Seirstad, resulting in a large hole in her side and she was listing heavily. She had a cargo of aviation fuel at the time. Her crew launched the boats and remained nearby for a while, then when it seemed safe to do so, they reboarded and continued towards Batavia, having managed to straighten the ship, and arrived Batavia on Febr. 14.

They were able to get out of Batavia shortly before the Japanese invaded. Seirstad initially went to Colombo (arrived March 4), but was redirected to Bombay, where she arrived on March 8. She was subsequently docked for repairs, remaining there until Sept. 30-1942, when she proceeded to Fremantle - again, see Page 2. It'll be noticed that she also spent a long time in Los Angeles, where she arrived from Melbourne on Nov. 27-1942; departure is given as Febr. 6-1943, when she headed to Brisbane - according to the Stavern Memorial, she lost a crew member on this voyage, ref. external link at the end of this page.

Page 3 shows another long stay in Sydney, where she had arrived from Brisbane on Dec. 14-1943. She did not leave again until March 12-1944. Her 1945 voyages also start on this document and continue on Page 4; as can be seen, she appears to have had a long stay in Baltimore that year. This document shows her voyages to March-1946.

According to this external page, she was transferred to Skibs-A/S Sangstad (A. F. Klaveness & Co. A/S, Lysaker), Oslo in 1948. On Jan. 14-1958, she broke in 2 in position 40 01N 05 23E, when on a voyage from Ras Tanura to Barcelona with fuel oil. 3 died. The foreship was sunk by a French warship to prevent danger to other shipping, while the after part was towed to Bizerta by another French warship. The aft part was sold that same year to Empresa Nacional Elcano, Sevilla with the intention of building a new foreship and giving her the name Valdelugeros, but arrived Sevilla on May 4 and laid up, later sold for breaking up.

Related external link:
Stavern Memorial commemoration - Seaman Samuel Gottfred Sørensen is listed here as having died at sea on Febr. 23-1943 due to illness. According to Page 2 of the archive documents, Seirstad was on her way from Los Angeles to Brisbane on that date.

The company had a steamship named Seirstad (spelt Seierstad in some sources), built Oslo 1900, 995 gt. Sold to Risør (Jacob Prebensen Jr.) in 1916. Listed as sunk by a German U-boat in Nov.-1916.

Aa–Al	An–Ar	As–Av	Ba	Be	Bi–Bl	Bo	Br–Bu	C	D
E	F	G	Ha	He	Hi–Hy	Hø	I	J	K
L	M	N	O	PQ	R	Sa–Sc	Se–Sj	Sk–Sn	So
Sp–St	Su–Sø	Ta–Te	Th–Ti	To	Tr–Tø	U	V	W	Ø

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