The wooden motor vessel Ustetind was launched from the Drammen yard of A/S Tangen Skipsbygerri (Yard No 398). She measured 161.2′ x 30,5′ x 12.6′ and her tonnage was 547 gross tons, 305 net tons. She was powered by a two 4 cylinder diesel engine by J and C G Boliders MV, Stockholm delivering 320 brake horse power.
Extract Lloyd’s Register 1929.
Originally commissioned by Karl Jebsen, Bergen she was launched in January 1922. In May 1922 she was temporarily registered at Skibs-A/S Ustetind (Karl Jebsen, Bergen), Drammen before being towed to Knut Skaaluren, Rosendal, to be completed in 1924. On 15th September 1924 she was delivered to Skibs-A/S Ustetind (Karl Jebsen), Bergen but was sold only months later on 23rd February 1925 to Brødrene Aarsether A/S, Ålesund.
In December 1929 she was en route from Porsgrunn to the Tyne with a cargo of 600 tons of telegraph poles under the command of Captain Barmen. As she crossed the North Sea and reached a position abreast of Fair Isle she encountered a severe gale which drove her towards the rocky shore. At 6am on Christmas Day she lost one of her twin propellers. Now partially disabled and with her sails basically useless due to the severity of the wind she was driven inexorably towards Silwick on the south west side of the Shetland mainland. Captain Barmen ordered both anchors deployed and for a while this held them off shore. However, eventually one line, then the other gave way and she drifted on towards the shore. Thankfully, she drifted past the rocky skerry guarding the entrance to Silwick before she ran aground and a flat rocky shelf two hundred yards the shore at Silwick. She bumped a further fifty yards towards the beach in the on shore wind and swell before running hard aground.
Ustetind aground at Silwick
Her plight was observed from the nearby village and a message transmitted to the lifesaving crew at Wall, eighteen miles from Silwick, who immediately set out to the site of the wreck. However, a severe blizzard was raging at the time and the villagers worried that darkness would descend before the rescue team arrived. They succeeded in firing a line from the headland to the wreck and, using this, the crew were pulled ashore in two trips of the ship’s boat. By this time the Ustetind was settling deep in the water with her bottom smashed and by the following day she was declared a total wreck.
Ustetind wreckage ashore after she broke up
The wooden wreck gradually broke up with much of her wreckage driven ashore over subsequent months. While we have been unable to learn how much, if any, salvage was attempted it seem likely that some wreckage from Ustetind should remain in the shallow waters in the bay at Silwick in approximate position 60° 09.582’N, 001° 28.324’W.
