II.

Construction

Norwegian explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen came up with the idea of building a ship that could withstand the forces of floating pack ice in the polar regions. He wanted to test his controversial theory that the permanent ice of the Arctic Ocean drifts with currents from east to west. To demonstrate his theory, Nansen proposed to sail a ship as far eastward as possible and allow it to be frozen into the ice; the ship would then drift with the ice floes (floating ice sheets), recording their speed and direction. He surmised that the floes would carry the ship to the North Pole. He hoped to be the first person to reach the pole.

The main difficulty of the plan was to construct a ship that would not be crushed when exposed to the extreme pressures of heavy pack ice. Many experts said it could not be done. Nansen recruited an experienced Norwegian shipbuilder of Scottish descent, Colin Archer, for the task. Together they designed the ship, which Nansen’s wife, Eva, named Fram (Norwegian for “Forward”).

The ship was constructed of wood, giving it the necessary flexibility to survive the stresses that would come from every direction on the ice. Structural beams of American elm and Italian oak, unusually thick for a ship of its size, and four layers of pine, oak, and greenheart planking produced a hull up to 80 cm (34 in) thick in places. The ship had no protuberances or plane surfaces on its underside that ice could jam against and crush. In addition, the rounded hull ensured that as the ice formed around it, the ship would be forced upwards, until it was sitting on top of the ice floe.

The ship was unusually broad (11 m/36 ft) for its length (39 m/128 ft). It had three masts and schooner-rigged sails, plus a 220-hp steam engine, giving it a cruising speed of 6 to 7 knots. An electric generator, linked to a windmill on the deck, provided power for lighting. Six layers of insulation for the interior rooms solved the problem of water vapor condensing and freezing on the walls of cabins, a bane of previous Arctic expeditions. The layers consisted, from inside to outside, of felt (made from reindeer hair), cork, softwood board, more felt, linoleum, and lastly wooden paneling. Entry to the interior from the deck was through four sets of airtight doors, and the main saloon’s skylight was triple-glazed.