HNoMS Axel Thorsen (1810)

Plan of the schooners Axel Thorsen and Skiøn Valborg
Class overview
Name	Norwegian gun-ships (Norske Kanonskonnert)
Operators	Dano- Norwegian Navy
In commission	1808–1814
Completed	10
Lost	2
Retired	8 (transferred)
Class overview
Name	Norwegian gun-ship (Norske Kanonskonnert)
Operators	Norwegian Navy 1815–1844: 1844–1905:
In commission	1814–1872
General characteristics
Type	Schooner
Displacement	70 tons approx.
Length	18.3 meters
Beam	5.2 meters
Depth of hold	1.8 meters
Complement	45–50
Armament	2 × 24-pounder guns + 2 × 12-pounder carronades + 4 or 6 × 4-pounder howitzers

Axel Thorsen (1810/1814–1863) was a Norske Kanonskonnert built in Trondheim, and launched on 28 April 1810. She was one of ten such ships built in either Bergen or Trondheim for the Danish-Norwegian navy before the end of the Napoleonic Wars (and English Wars) when Norway became independent of Denmark at the Treaty of Kiel in 1814.

Origin of Name[]

Axel Thorsen is a character in very old Danish folk tales and poetry^[1]

Danish Service[]

Axel Thorsen, along with her sister gunships Nornen and Valkyrien joined Müller's Finmark Squadron in 1810^[2]

Norwegian Service[]

Axel Thorsen was used in fisheries protection until 1839, and commercially thereafter.^[3]
In 1864 this ship took part in the Swedish expedition to Spitzbergen led by Baron Nordenskiöld.^[3]

Fate[]

She was lost in the Arctic Ocean off Novaya Zemlya in August 1872.^[4]

Citations and references[]

Citations

References

• Fra Krigens Tid (1807 -1814) (From the wartime) edited by N A Larson, Christiana (Oslo) 1878. (Title page and Chapter headings)
• Oehlenschläger: Gamle danske Folkeviser, Kiøbenhavn 1840 Berlingske Bogtrukkeri (on Google Books)