The Fram under sail, undated. [1]The round-bottomed Fram, built for the pack ice, was notorious for rolling in the slightest swells. "[She] rolls day and night without respite," Johansen wrote in his diary. "At every meal, we have to lash our chairs to the deck ... not a moment's peace since we left Norway except for the 2-3 days at Madeira." [1]
Amundsen, though, was more phlegmatic. During a southwesterly storm, he wrote, "the sea rose up to a fairly noticeable height. Some [waves] reached the maximum on the scale -- 10 metres high. But -- how wonderfully [the Fram] takes them. As long as one is careful to keep her stern towards these bouncers, one would not know that one was at sea.... She lurches all right, but not a drop of water does she take on board." [2]
Notes:
[1] Roald Amundsen bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[2] Hjalmar Johansen, diary [date not given], quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.66.
[3] Roald Amundsen, diary, 10 November, 1910, quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.66.
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