Stavanger
Aftenblad article
"Flaggtabbe
på «Anna af Sand»"
"Flag blunder on board the Anna of Sand "
by Siv Helen Kvalvåg
August 8, 2000
http://stavanger-aftenblad.no/nyheter/lokalt/article.jhtml?articleID=29691
"Give
me a cannon. I want to shoot that flag off the ship,” exclaimed Erik Bye when
he saw the flag that the Anna of Sand was flying at the Emigrant Jubilee
in July.
The ship
came sailing to Vågen in Stavanger harbor with the Union flag flying in the
stern. Erik Bye was not the only person who reacted negatively to this. Harald
Hamre, the director of Stavanger Sjøfartsmuseum (Museum of Shipping) disliked
the sight.
“I am not
pleased about this, no. The Union flag is not correct for the time of the
emigration,” says Hamre.
“The
Herring Salad”
The skipper
of the Anna of Sand, Ole Emil Olsen, takes all the blame for the
mistake.
“The reason
is that I lacked full knowledge about this,” he says.
Olsen
explains what happened when the 175th anniversary for Norwegian
emigration to America was celebrated in Stavanger in July.
“We wanted
the Anna of Sand to have the flag that was in use in 1825. I was in no
doubt that this was the flag nicknamed 'the herring salad.' I got in touch with
Thor G. Norås, and he promised to obtain a copy of the flag.
“We
received it in the nick of time, as we were waiting at the Tollboden for our
sailing in to the harbor. I felt puzzled, because the flag did not look like I
had expected. This was simply a Swedish flag with a red and white cross in one
corner,” Olsen says.
During the
festival he heard a lot of critical comments about the flag.
“People
from the Sailor Association scratched their heads. They did not recognize the
flag. And Erik Bye was furious. He asked for a cannon,” laughs Olsen.
Two flags
in 1825
The problem
was not solved until last weekend, when the Anna of Sand visited
Egersund. Then Harald Hamre, who had been away at the time of the festival, saw
the flag for the first time. The historian Hamre reacted instantaneously.
“It is a
mistake to use this flag on the Anna of Sand, the ship that was used as
a stand-in for the Restauration. In 1825 there existed two different
flags, the clean (red, white, blue) Norwegian flag and this Union flag. The
latter was used on all public buildings and on all government-owned ships that
sailed further south than Portugal. But the Restauration was not owned
by the state, it was a private merchant vessel,” says Hamre.
It turned
out that Thor G. Norås had borrowed the flag from the Bureau of Customs. For
them this was the correct flag; the vessels of the customs were owned by the state.
“This is
not a big blunder, though. The flag history of the early 19th
century is complicated, and it is easy to make a wrong step,” says Hamre.
Both Hamre
and skipper Olsen promise that the clean Norwegian flag will fly from the Anna
of Sand when emigration again is in focus on Friday.
Legend
under photo:
Fifth cousins Ernst Torkildsen from Stavanger, to the left, and Keith Wheeler from the USA met for the first time on board the Anna of Sand at the Emigrant Jubilee in July. In the stern of the ship was the Union flag of Norway and Sweden, which should only be flown in state-owned ships, and not the clean Norwegian flag, which was the correct flag for a private ship in 1825.