Maud (ship)

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The wreck of "Maud", near Cambridge Bay (Victoria Island).

Maud was a ship built for Roald Amundsen for his second expedition to the Arctic

The vessel was built at a shipyard in Asker at the Oslofjord, Norway. constructed and built especially for his intended voyage through the Northeast Passage

The vessel was launched in June 1916 and christened by Amundsen himself by crushing a chunk of ice against the vessel's bow :

It is not my intention to dishonour the gloruis grape, But already now you shall get the taste of your real environment. For the Ice you have been built, and in the ice you shall stay most of your life, and in the ice you shall solve your tasks. With the permission of our queen, I christen you: Maud

The vessel was built of oak and had the following dimensions:

Length: 36,5 m
Witdt: 12,3 m
Draft: 4,85 m
Tonnage: 292 tons
Engine: 240 H/p semidiesel Bolinder engine

Whereas the other Polar vessels Gjøa and Fram has been preserved at the maritime museum at Bygdøy near Oslo, the Maud was subject to a far less glamorous destiny.

After sailing through the Northeast Passage, which did not go as planned and lasted for six years from 1918 till 1924 she ended up in Cambridge Bay, Alaska in August 1925 and was sold on behalf of Amundsens creditors.

The buyer was Hudson's Bay Company She was renamed «Baymaud» and used as cargo vessel along the Alaskan coast and Westcoast till she sank at her anchorage off Cambridge Bay in 1930