This afternoon, sailing south from Ålesund bound for Haugesund, on Hurtigruten’s MS Trollfjord, I noticed something unusual. The ship was pitching and rolling. The motion was gentle but evident. On the previous twelve or so days of the voyage to the North Cape from Bergen and back south, the ship had spent most of the time weaving its way through the archipelago of islands that shield the coast from the worst of the weather on the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea.

The ship was rolling because we were rounding the Stad peninsula, which is also referred to as the West Cape, the westerly most and most exposed point of land on the Norwegian coast.

Within a few years, ships like the MS Trollfjord will no longer have to round the Stad peninsula in rough weather. Norway is now scheduled to begin construction in 2024 of the world’s largest ship tunnel to create a bypass for ocean-going ships, as well as coastal ferries, freighters, and fishing vessels. The tunnel will be 1,700 meters long by 50 meters high and 37 meters wide and is expected to cost more than 2.7bn kroner ($325m). Final cost estimates will be developed by 2024. The tunnel is expected to be completed around 2030.

In Viking times, longboats were dragged up and over a 4.5 km long and 240 m high mountain pass to avoid the extreme weather around the peninsula. In 1594, 15 ships sank attempting to round the peninsula with the loss of between 300 – 600 lives. Hundreds more lives have been lost over the intervening years. A tunnel through the Stadt peninsula was first proposed in 1870.

While the MS Trollfjord is not a large ship by the standards of the current cruise ship behemoths, at 16,140 GT, a length of 135,75 m (445 ft 4 in), a beam of 21,5 m (70 ft 5 in), she is still sizeable. She will, nevertheless, be able to sail through the tunnel with 7.75 meters to spare on each side.

A short video of the history of the Stad ship tunnel from the Viking era to the present day.