MAUD - English annotations

3D Model

Built at Christian Jensen’s shipyard at Vollen, Norway, and launched on June 17, 1917, Maud was a three-masted schooner 36.5 meters long and 12.3 meters wide, equipped with a 240 hp Bolinder semi-diesel engine for propulsion when sails were insufficient.

The hull had 4-inch oak planks with an additional 2½-inch ice sheathing, strong frames, and an almost completely rounded profile that allowed the ship to be lifted up by the pack ice rather than crushed.

Under Amundsen’s command, Maud was frozen into the Arctic ice twice (1918–24) to drift with the current and collect meteorological, magnetic, and oceanographic data. Though it never reached the North Pole, it endured years of extreme ice pressure and proved the value of purpose-built icegoing vessels. After financial troubles, Maud was sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1925, renamed Baymaud, and sank as a supply ship in Cambridge Bay in 1930.

The wreck was raised between 2016 and 2018 by the “Maud Returns Home” project and now rests in Tofte, Norway.