''Southern Actor'' is a former

whale catcher A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, J ...

, currently a museum ship based in

Sandefjord Sandefjord () is a city and the most populous municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The municipality of Sandefjord was established on 1 January 1838. The municipality of Sandar was merged into Sandefjord on 1 January 1969. On 1 ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

and owned by

Sandefjord Museum Sandefjordmuseene (''Hvalfangstmuseet'') is a museum located in Sandefjord, Norway. It is dedicated to the whaling industry and is the only specialized museum on the subject of whales and whaling in Europe. Since 2009, the museum has been associa ...

. It is the only whale catcher from the Modern Whaling Epoch still to be in its original working order. Over 100,000 hours have been spent on restoring the vessel. ''Southern Actor'' was built in 1950 at Smiths Dock, Middlesbrough, England, for the whaling company Christian Salvesen Ltd in

Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by ''Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. Many of Salvesen's employees were

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

mostly from

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered t ...

. The ship was in Norway for maintenance in the summer. In 1995, ''Southern Actor'' was fully restored, as authentically as possible in relation to the way the boat was originally constructed. That same year she was declared worthy of preservation by Riksantikvaren, the Norwegian Directorate of Cultural Heritage. ''Southern Actor'' is in working order and can be chartered for excursions.

References

External links

* * Fishing vessels of Norway Whaling ships Museum ships in Norway Museums in Vestfold og Telemark Sandefjord 1950 ships Ships built on the River Tees {{Merchantship-stub