A hero of the sea

Karolius Kristiansen (1869 – 1933)

When the cargo ship D/S “Viktoria” hit the rocks outside Tananger on the south-western coast in 1903, the pilot Karolius Kristiansen and his colleague Jon Roth sailed out to the wreck, despite of the bad weather and managed to save five of the crew.

Karolius Kristiansen was born on the island of Sandhornøy in the north of Norway in 1869. He sailed the sea from the age of 17, and befriended Hans Karlsen from Tananger, who’s sister he later married. His father-in-law was a pilot, and it was he who taught Karolius the basic skills of the pilot profession.

When he started, pilotage was an individual enterprise, where the different pilots from the same station had to compete to win the commissions, often racing each other to get to the ships first.

In 1899, however, the Law of Pilotage was changed so that it was made possible for pilots in certain districts to run their service as a joint venture in the sense that all income was collected to a common strong-box and then shared among the pilots according to their efforts.

Gradually, this system was introduced all along the coast, and by 1925 the competition among colleagues in the pilot service was finally ended.

Karolius experienced several dramatic commissions. When he and his colleague Jon sailed out to the shipwrecked D/S “Viktoria” in 1903, they were obviously risking their own lives in the heavy storm. Their pilot-cutter was too big to get to wreck itself, but they stayed close by all through the night.

At dawn they discovered that there were survivors on board, and they managed to send signals ashore. A rescue boat was sent out, and with the help of the pilots they managed to save five of the crew. 18 men died, but the pilots were honoured for their effort.

When Karl retired in 1929, his son-in-law Oscar Olsen replaced him at the pilot station in Tananger.