Memorial to fishermen netted by thieves set to be replaced

The city council is spending £40,000 from its insurance reserves on a replacement made by the original artist in Iceland, Steinunn Thorarinsdottir, who is likely to attend the unveiling.

The original was stolen from its plinth by a group of people in July. CCTV footage captured the theft, but from a distance.

Although there were two arrests, no one has been charged.

Deputy council leader Coun Daren Hale said as well as the £40,000 cost of the replacement in bronze, councillors would also approve spending of £5,000 on extra security measures at a meeting on Thursday.

The original statue was secured by pins and adhesive, and it wasn’t covered by insurance because it was in the open.

Coun Hale said: “We are not going to allow thieves to rob our cultural heritage.

“The theft was an insult to fishermen in Hull and we want to ensure that this statue takes pride of place overlooking the Humber.”

The statue will be a replica from a mould taken from its sister sculpture made by the same artist in Vik, a remote settlement on the Atlantic coast, where many Hull trawlermen were rescued and given food and shelter when their vessels ran aground.

Icelandic firm Samskip has offered to transport the replacement to Hull free of charge.

Although relations between Hull and Iceland soured during the Cod Wars, a dispute over fishing rights between 1950 and 1976, they have been trading partners for more than 1,000 years.

Maritime historian Robb Robinson said: “Next year marks the 600th anniversary of the first recorded trips in the Icelandic annals of the first English ships to trade and fish in Iceland and they were from Hull, Bristol and London.

“Hull was the most enduring port in the 15th century and has been intermittently ever since. Some of the vessels which made the voyages in the 15th century were really stretching contemporary technology to its limits.

“They were two-masted sailing ships and they were voyaging to Iceland before Columbus crossed the Atlantic and in fact some of the people who were on these voyages were to some degree pioneers in trans-oceanic trade.

“There is evidence that some of those vessels who made the trip to Iceland made an earlier trip to Bordeaux in France to pick up wine which they bought back to Hull and some of the skippers made the later summer voyage to Iceland.

“Much later in the 1890s Humber vessels were revisiting Iceland to trawl for fish. The first steam trawler we know of to visit Iceland was probably the Aquarius of Grimsby, which visited Iceland in the early 1890s.”

According to the famous English antiquary John Leland, who visited the town in the 1540s, Hull streets were paved with Icelandic cobbles which had come from Iceland in the holds of ships.

A report to Hull Council’s Cabinet says replacing the statue in aluminium would cost £30,470, compared to £39,270 for bronze. Installation is likely to take place in March, in time for an unveiling in April or May.

The report says all options – including not replacing the statue at all -– “in some way could attract criticism, however it is the view of officers that not replacing the statue would in all probability be most damaging locally and further afield.”

It backs replacement in bronze saying it sends a message to those involved in making a living from the sea in the past, present and future that the council recognises the “huge contribution made by them to the city.”

Statues enhanced ties with Iceland

Two artworks, Voyage and For, were unveiled five years ago in the city and Iceland to commemorate their 1000-year association. The first statue, Voyage, unveiled on June 23 2006 looked across the river Humber from Victoria Pier, until July 24 when it was stolen from its plinth. The second, For, faces the wind and rain-buffetted Icelandic coastline from Vik, the southernmost village in Iceland.