A Cruise on the Shetland Bus
During a recent visit to Victoria, BC, as I strolled around the harbor my eye was caught by a signboard offering 3-hour sailing cruises on an interesting-looking boat docked nearby. What really got my attention was a note that the vessel had been part of the Shetland Bus operation. Three years ago, during a holiday in the Shetland Islands, I had learned the story of the Shetland Bus, one of the dramatic escapades of the Second World War. In 1940, Norway had been overrun by the Nazis, with the aid of Norwegian fascists—one of whom gave the name “Quisling” to the English language as a synonym for “traitor.” The Norwegian royal family had escaped to Britain, taking the country’s treasury with them, and so had many Norwegian fishing boats. The British organized a shuttle service between a remote location on the Shetland “mainland” and Norway, carried out by the fishing boats, and called it the “Shetland Bus.” The boats took supplies—radios, guns, ammunition, etc.—to the underground resistance in Norway, and brought back Norwegians escaping the Nazis. The Germans were aware of the operation, so the danger of capture or destruction by German warships added to the usual dangers posed by storms on the shallow North Sea.
The Duen’s sole voyage as part of the operation took place on November 10, 1941. I don’t want to think what it would be like to sail the North Sea in November, let alone dodging German gunboats. Returning to Shetland, Duen ran aground at Sumburgh Head, the southernmost point of the Shetland “mainland” but was refloated. At one point, the Shetland Bus operation attempted to attach mines to the hull of a German battleship anchored in a fjord; the attempt failed, and one of the operatives, wounded, survived a heroic trek across northern Norway to safety in Sweden. The whole story is eloquently recounted in a book, The Shetland Bus, written by David Howarth, the British commander of the operation, which I had read while in Shetland. I had also seen the monument to the Shetland Bus in Shetland’s Atlantic port of Scalloway. I had first been made aware of the Shetland Bus during a previous holiday in Bergen, so I could visualize the operation from both ends.
The Duen (Norwegian for “Dove”) was built of pitch pine and oak in a Norwegian port in She is 72 feet long, ketch-rigged with a main and mizzen. After the war she worked as a North Sea fishing boat until she was purchased by an American couple in 1970. For the next 16 years, the couple and their children lived aboard Duen, circumnavigating the globe and sailing in the South Seas. In 1986 the boat was bought by a young Canadian couple; the husband had sailed with the Americans and fell in love with the sailing life. The Canadians made Duen into a training vessel, taking young students for a 5-day working sail. Recently it has also been used during the summers to take tourists such as me for 3-hour sails from Victoria’s inner harbour.
Once aboard, I found Duen to be beautifully maintained, its woodwork varnished to a sparkle, its accommodations clean, its engine modern, and its navigational equipment up-to-date. The crew was two good-natured young men. We motored out of the harbour into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in a light wind, hoisted four of the boat’s six sails (they let me haul on a mizzen halyard), and fought one of the Strait’s typically strong flood tides, making only one knot. When we turned back toward the harbour, we noticeably gathered speed. Chatting with the skipper, I was fascinated to learn that he was head-over-heels in love with sailing and had spent five years crewing in the Atlantic and Mediterranean on a replica 18th -century French frigate. Duen was his first command. She continues to be used as a training vessel, taking 14 Grade 9 students from Calgary at a time on a five-day cruise (until interrupted by Covid). Our three hours were too soon finished, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being aboard such an historic and well-traveled deep-sea voyager.
For more on the current home of the Duen, Click Here
