Southern Whaling and Sealing Company
The shipbuilding firm of Smith's Dock Co., Middlesbrough were commissioned to construct two steel 92 ft. diesel-powered whale catchers as well as fit a diesel auxiliary in Sound of Jura.
As well as having a whaling lease at Prince Olav Harbour, South Georgia, SWSC established a station at Port Alexander in Angola.
They also undertook some sealing expeditions to Marion & Prince Edward Islands from Cape Town, but these proved unsustainable.
The 1916–17 season failed to produce any whale oil and saw the commencement of the construction of the shore station at Prince Olav Harbour.
SWSC worked in co-operation with Salvesen's at Leith Harbour in 1915–17 to produce as much blubber oil as possible for the war effort in Europe.
She was purchased by the newly formed SWSC in 1911, and fitted with an auxiliary 4-cylinder Polar-Diesel 260 bhp engine later the same year by Smith's Dock Co, Middlesbrough.
During the 1915–16 season, Sound of Jura is recorded as having left South Georgia en route to Falmouth with 9,100 barrels of whale oil.
She was abandoned and sank when on passage from the UK to South Georgia off the Scilly Isles with whaling equipment on 4 November 1916.
44 crew members, 31 DBS and two gunners were picked up by HMS Potentilla (K 214) (LtCdr Monsson), and transferred to the Norwegian whale factory ship MV Suderøy and landed at Liverpool.
[15] On 27 February 1917, under her previous owner as the tanker San Patricio for the Eagle Oil Co. she was torpedoed and damaged by U-70 (Otto Wünsche) and, not willing to sink, was then assaulted by gunfire off Orkney.
The British Government then imposed restrictions on their issue and conditions to ensure that the complete whale was to be processed rather than just the blubber, to try to sustain the industry.
Named from the Swedish for "The Pot Cove" and the principal settlement of South Georgia, Compañía Argentina de Pesca operated Grytviken to 1959.
In 1917 SWSC leased the Stromness factory and catchers from Sandefjords Hvalfangerselskab while the Prince Olav Harbour was being completed.
From 1931 onwards it became a ship repair yard having been purchased by the South Georgia Co. of Leith, a sub-company of Christian Salvesen.
