MS Nordstjernen

MS Nordstjernen was built in 1956 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg and served the Hurtigruten coastal route for 56 years, carrying post, cargo and passengers along the whole Norwegian coast.

From 1968 she ran summer express sailings to Svalbard, a service revived in 1994 and continued each summer until 2009. After a final Svalbard season in 2012 she was listed as a cultural heritage monument by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage, Riksantikvaren.

She was extensively restored in 2013 without modernising her technical character, resumed seasonal Svalbard voyages from 2015, and from 2025 sails across Northern Europe. Any change to the ship still requires the prior approval of Riksantikvaren.

Wooden panelling, brass fittings and worn stair rails: the interior of the ship is part of the journey rather than a backdrop to it. The salon deck, café and aft salon are where the day is actually spent.

She carries no stabilisers, bow thruster or stern thruster, so she rolls and pitches more than a modern ship — and holds the sea in the way vessels of her generation were built to. There are no lifts, some stairs are steep, and every exterior door has a 35–40 cm sill.

Deck space is generous relative to the number of guests aboard, so there is always somewhere quiet to stand and watch the coast pass.