Shipwrecks
Guvernøren (1889-1921)
The GOVERNØREN was launched on the 1st January 1889 in Belfast as a livestock carrier. She was originally named the RUNIC by her builders Harland and Wolff, with the yard No. 211. She was a four-masted steam ship with a three-cylinder 424NHP Harland and Wolff engine, capable of 12 knots, with a GRT of 4,649 and NRT of 3,046 tons. She was 131.28m long and 13.78m wide and designed to carry 1,000 head of live cattle eastbound, from the USA, and a general cargo westbound; she also had berths for 48 passengers. Her first owner was the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, part of the White Star Line, owners of the TITANIC, and she was initially registered in Liverpool.
The RUNIC was sold, in 1895, to the West India & Pacific Steamship Company, and was renamed TAMPICAN, a name that she retained when her owner was acquired by the Leyland Line in 1899. She was then sold twice in 1912, first to H.E. Moss & Company, and then to South Pacific Whaling Company, a Norwegian firm which converted her into a whaling factory ship in Sandefjord Norway. She was then renamed IMO.
Key Facts:
Whale Factory Ship
Built: Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Size: 131.28m long, 13.78m wide
Launched: 1st January 1889
Fate: Wrecked in Cow Bay, East Falkland
IMO didn’t become the GOVERNØREN until 1919, by which time she had become infamous for her part in a massive explosion in Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia in December 1917, which killed almost 2,000 people and injured at least 9,000 more. At the time, it was the single biggest man-made explosion in history.
In April 1912, the IMO’s then owners were awarded a 14-year licence to catch whales along the coast of the French Congo. At first, this venture appeared profitable, although not without some problems. The IMO was twice arrested in 1913 and again in 1914 off the French Congo coast. From 1915, the IMO worked as a cargo ship, transporting grain from the USA to Europe. In 1917, the IMO was chartered to make three round-trips from the USA in aid of ‘The Commission for Relief in Belgium’.
In the early morning of 6th December 1917, the IMO was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, preparing to travel to New York to pick up one of the contracted aid shipments for the Belgians. She had no cargo on board and was ‘in ballast’. Departing from the harbour at exactly the same time was another cargo vessel owned by the French Line, the MONT-BLANC, which was due to join an Allied WW1 convoy in Bedford Basin.
The MONT-BLANC was loaded with 2,300 tons of liquid and solid picric acid (an odourless crystalline substance used as a military explosive), 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons guncotton and 35 tons of benzol. At the entrance to the Narrows, at 08:45 hrs, the IMO struck MONT-BLANC’s bow. Although the impact was only a glancing blow, fire immediately broke out on the MONT BLANC. Barrels filled with Benzol had toppled over and flooded the deck with the highly inflammable fluid and also spilled into the ship’s hold. As the IMO used her engine to disengage from the MONT-BLANC, sparks ignited the Benzol vapour.
The MONT-BLANC’s captain, pilot and crew, knowing her cargo and expecting the ship to explode, lowered their lifeboats and left the burning vessel as quickly as they could. The fire continued to burn for about 20 minutes, as the vessel drifted towards Pier 6 and the Richmond Waterfront, a busy industrial area in the northwest part of Halifax. Many residents, unaware of what was on board the MONT BLANC, lined the shores to gawp at the fire.
Just before 09:05, the MONT BLANC exploded. The vessel was completely destroyed, as were most of the nearby buildings. A huge swathe of Halifax was levelled and the temperature soared to 5,000 Centigrade. Metal fragments rained down on a huge area with such force that they went through the roofs of the buildings that hadn’t already been demolished.
Most of those who had gathered to watch the burning ship, which included children, died instantly. As did many people at work, families in their homes and sailors on nearby ships. The injuries for survivors were horrendous: blindness from splintered glass, in addition to shock and other injuries. Not a single window in Halifax was left intact.
The IMO was also severely damaged and the blast and subsequent tsunami drove the vessel ashore on the Dartmouth side of Halifax Harbor. Her Captain, the pilot guiding her from the harbour and five of the 39 crew on board aboard were killed. Amazingly, the entire crew of the MONT BLANC survived, though some may have succumbed later from injuries received from falling debris.
The death toll quickly rose to 1,950. Around 250 bodies were never identified. Others were never found. At least 9,000 were badly hurt. It was by far the biggest man-made explosion in history at the time and wouldn’t be surpassed until 1945, when the two nuclear bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
An official investigation was opened within days. The captain and the pilot of MONT BLANC, and the responsible officer on the bridge were initially indicted for murder. The charges were later dropped when ‘irresponsible behaviour’ could not be proved; however, in April 1918, in the Court of Nova Scotia, the MONT BLANC was blamed for the accident. Courts in London at the time, where ultimate authority lay, also agreed with that judgment.
Although these findings at first exonerated the crew of the IMO, subsequent appeals in Canada and Britain resulted in both ships being blamed for the navigational errors which led to the disaster.
The IMO was refloated on 26th April 1918 and underwent a major and lengthy repair, which took until 9th May 1919. Her owners, South Pacific Whaling merged with two other companies to form A/S Odd, and the restored ship was sent back to sea to resume her work as a whaling factory ship but with the new name GUVERNØREN. In 1920/21, she was deployed to the South Shetlands, in Drake Passage, about 75 miles north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
In November 1921, she began her second season since being repaired. She was being managed by Chr. Christensen (for A/S Odd) and was scheduled to travel from her home port of Sandefjord in Norway to Montevideo in Uruguay to Stanley in the Falklands, before again whaling in the South Shetlands.
She never made it. At about 23:00 hrs on the 29th November 1921 the GUVERNØREN in “very thick weather”, struck the rocks at Cape Carysfort, Cow Bay, in East Falkland, about 20 miles from Stanley Harbour. Her crew immediately abandoned ship, taking their personal belongings with them. No one died and no one was seriously injured. There is a story that the grounding was caused by the ship’s helmsman collapsing after a bout of celebratory drinking – leaving no one at the wheel.
They got away in three boats – the GUVERNØREN’s whale catchers, named ODD, ODD 1 and ODD 3 – and made it safely to Stanley. The following day, 1st December 1922, 70 of them left the harbour for Montevideo on the mail steamer ORCOMA. Just over six weeks later, on 18th January, the GUVERNØREN’s insurers agreed she was a write off and paid £232,000 to her owners.
Ownership of the wreck therefore passed to the insurers, who allowed the Falkland Islands Company Ltd to salvage some items. This was carried out by Captain Roberts with his Falklands schooner GWENDOLIN. He saved a seventy-five foot motor boat and a lathe, later used in the F.I.C. Engineering workshop.
The three whale catchers that the GUVERNØREN’s crew had escaped in were also put to work – assigned, for the season, to other licenced whale factory ships. ODD was assigned to the HECTOR, ODD 1 to ØRNEN and ODD 3 to PYTHIA.
In 2005, the Falklands postal service issued a £1.20p stamp which marked the Halifax explosion, and both the ships involved. In November 2017, to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the blast, Canada Post issued a stamp featuring a newspaper headline about the explosion. Also in 2017, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the French archipelago of eight islands which lie to the south of Newfoundland issued its own postage stamp which depicts the tragedy.
NB: The GUVERNØREN is sometimes confused with a vessel of the same name, also owned by A/S Odd, which caught fire and burnt out at Foyn Harbour, Enterprise Island, in the South Shetland Islands on the 27th January 1915. That GUVERNØREN had been built and launched a few years later, in 1891.
![GUVERNØREN wrecked at Cow Bay - Les Hardy [1898-1962] Postcard](https://fmht.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GUVERNOREN-wrecked-at-Cow-Bay-Les-Hardy-1898-1962-Postcard-not-sure-where-came-from.jpg){kind=link}
