Houseflags of Norwegian maritime companies (B)

Newcastle - Bergen Service

House flag: Red Burgee with Blue Borders, top and bottom, two White Bands and BDS over Star in White on Red.
Jarig Bakker, 13 October 2003

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It was founded in Bergen in 1851. According to my sources, the letters were arranged in a semi-circular pattern above the star.
Jan Oskar Engene, 16 October 2003

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In All about Ships and Shipping 1959 the letters are in a row, like James drew them, so possibly two variations existed. Description: Red Burgee with Blue Border, top and bottom, two White Bands and BDS over Star in White on Red. Funnel: Black, with three White Bands.
Jarig Bakker, 16 October 2003

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The letters also appear in a straight line in "Flags, Funnels and Hull Colours"
Ned Smith, 16 October 2003

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Given that the BDS existed for more than 130 years, variation in house flag and funnel is not unlikely. However, I am not sure that such variation actually occurred with the BDS house flag.

Last night I went through an illustrated history of the company, the book by shipping historian Dag Bakka jr: Bergenske: Byen og selskapet (Bergen: Seagull, 1993). Judging from ship photos of real house flags the letters were arranged in an arch (or semi-circle to use the term of yesterday) and this is how it remained throughout the company's 132 years. However, in printed material, the BDS used a logo consisting of a drawing of a flying house flag - as if it folded out in the wind. In these drawings the letters appear to be in a line. In real use, however, the letters appear to have been arranged in an arch. The back cover of Bakka's book illustrates the house flag and funnels of the BDS in colour. The house flag has the letters in an arch. The funnel was originally black with three white rings, at a later date (1960's ?) changed to yellow with three white rings.
Jan Oskar Engene, 17 October 2003

The first Bergesen shipping business was founded in the XIX century by Berge Bergesen in Stavanger. His great-grandson Sigval Bergesen founded in 1935 the Bergesen company, buying his first tanker the same year. The number of tankers was 4 in 1950 and 7 in 1955. In 1967, the company diversified in dry bulk cargo shipping. Sigvald Bergesen retired in 1976, aged 83, and the company became a public company in 1978. The same year, the company started gas transportation, taking over six vessels ordered by the defunct Fearlney & Eger company. In 1996, Bergesen merged with Havtor ASA, owning then more than 100 vessels.
Since April 2003, the company is a fully-owned subsidiary of World-Wide Shipping. It hires 3,500 people and has offices in France, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, India and Latvia.
The flag is 3:4, swallow-tailed, white with a green diagonal stripe and the black monogram of the company, made of a B and an half-anchor.
Ivan Sache, 30 November 2003

My contribution above is unsourced. It is based, however, on the (former and no longer online) company website, reported on 30 November 2003 by the late Dov Gutterman. The swallow-tailed house flag of the company is shown on that website as the company's logo. http://web.archive.org/web/20050924014440/http://www.bergesen.no/Bergesen/Company.nsf
Josef Nuesse's "Ships and Flags" website shows the same house flag, but rectangular instead of swallow-tailed.
Source: http://www.flagpole.de/reedereiflaggen/europa/nordeuropa/
Ivan Sache, 14 December 2013

The reason the website is no longer online is: In 2003, Bergesen was acquired by Hong Kong-based World-Wide. Together they formed Bergesen Worldwide. In 2005, the company was re-branded as BW, with Bermuda-based BW Group as the [obligatory] holding company.
I feared that the house flag of World-Wide might be hard to find, due to the name's meaning having relevance for all global shipping, but fortunately the flag is in the Greenwich National Maritime Museum collection: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/410.html
It's a white flag with a blue border and a centred couped red stripe bearing a white "W".
It's also how the flag was depicted on the sides of the funnel, e.g. http://www.histarmar.com.ar/BuquesMercantes/Chimeneas/Bergesen%20DY.jpg.
A nice detail is that on the starboard side of the funnel, you'd see the reverse of the flag, so it would always fly from stem to stern. The anchor-B was in obverse on both sides, though.
On the funnels, the swallowtail is tapering, but I don't know whether that was true for actual flags.
To me it looks like he has merely chosen a rather unfortunate method of  indicating gaps, with a light green meant to represent parts of the drawing that don't exist.
The funnels of the ships don't show a flag any more; they are now dark blue with the BW logo on them. And the Bergesen ships, that all were called "Berge <something>", have apparently been renamed and are now called "BW <something>", which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
But next on that same page is what appears to be a BW house flag.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 16 January 2014

Bergesen really only had a swallowtail flag, and that Josef Nuesse shows it thus, with the impression of a rectangular flag being caused by a rather light green background colour for the individual flags.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 22 June 2014

The Bergshav family has been involved in shipping since 1772, when they operated their first vessel called "Fortuna".

In 1930, J.M. Ugland, grandfather of the present Bergshav owner, founded the AS Ugland Rederi. In 1980, Ugland operated car carriers, tankers, bulk carriers and owned a repair yard. Bergshav Management was founded in 1989 following the de-merger of Ugland.

The flag is red with (apparently) a thin white border and a white stylized B in the middle. This flag is fairly similar to the house flag of Ugland, which is also used by the branch of the company incorporated in Bermuda, Andreas Ugland & Sons Ltd.
Ivan Sache, 30 November 2003, with textual corrections 28 September 2006