Written by Gerhard Flaaten, Bergens Tidende.
Norwegian version published on May 10, 2026.
The tanker surged at full speed towards the Strait of Hormuz. Then the captain made the hardest decision of his life.
Carl-Henrik Wersäll has to think fast. The navigation system on his tanker has failed.
Outside the bridge windows, small ripples move across the waters of the Persian Gulf. Just a few miles away, full-scale war is raging.
The captain knows that if he loses his composure now, panic could spread through the crew.
He sends a message to his wife in Stockholm:
“Don’t watch the news.”
The Dream of the Sea
Three weeks earlier, on his 44th birthday, Wersäll boarded a flight to Singapore. Back home, as always, were his wife Lisen and their daughters, aged ten and twelve.
Ever since he was a boy, the calm Swede knew he wanted to be a sailor. In 2008, he signed onto his first Odfjell vessel and gradually rose through the ranks of one of the world’s largest chemical tanker companies, headquartered in Bergen, Norway.
Waiting for him in Singapore was the 182-meter tanker, Bow Summer.
Read the full story: Escape from the Persian Gulf
