Hestmanden was built in Laksevåg for the Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab (VDS) in 1911 and was used on this company's costal cargo route between Bergen and Tromsø until 1915, when it began transporting coal between United Kingdom and France.

As such, the ship sailed in British coastal waters, but also in convoys to France as well as to Arkhangelsk in Russia, to support the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

A month later, Hestmanden was in Tromsø unloading coal from Svalbard, when it was ordered, like all Norwegian ships not in German controlled waters, to sail to the United Kingdom, where it was put into service for Nortraship.

[1][2][4] The idea was to turn the ship into a sailing museum, travelling along the coast of Norway as a memorial of the Norwegian wartime sailors.

[5] In 2021, Hestmanden was frequently used for on-board and sailing scenes during the shooting of the Norwegian feature film War Sailor, which was released on cinema in 2022 and on Netflix in 2023.