Thorodd was originally built as a steam escort trawler for the French Navy under the name Fleurus, before being sold to a Norwegian whaling firm who leased her to the Falkland Islands Government.

SS Fleurus served as a commercial mail ship in the Falkland Islands Dependencies during the 1920s, and was the first vessel to carry paying tourists to Antarctica.

Fleurus was constructed by the Foundation Company[1] of Savannah, Georgia as a steam escort trawler for the French Navy.

She was hired by the Royal Norwegian Navy following the outbreak of the Second World War, and taken into service as a patrol ship based at Hammerfest in the far north of Norway.

She was taken into the Royal Navy on 14 March 1941, manned by a Norwegian crew, as HMS Thorodd (FY-1905), operating with a group of North Sea minesweepers based in Dundee.

[2] While serving as a minesweeper, Thorodd gained a measure of fame for her captain's dog, a St. Bernard named Bamse.

The following year, she was sold to the fisheries company A/S Grindhaugs Fiskeriselskap, which converted her to a seine trawler; after conversion, she was lengthened to 151.2 feet, with a tonnage of 452 gross register tons, and a 408 b.h.p.