Bertil Gunnar Karlsson
Lovingly known as “Berra”
9 February 1944 — 26 August 2023 · aged 79
Lysekil trawler skipper, sea rescue volunteer and a man who forecast fog with his knee
Lysekil, Sweden Born in Smögen, Bohuslän Resting at Ashes scattered in the Gullmarsfjord, off LysekilAbout Bertil
Bertil Karlsson did not own a watch. He owned a tide table, a barometer he tapped like an old friend, and a left knee that could forecast fog three hours before the radio. In sixty years on the water off Bohuslän he was never once caught out.
Born in 1944 on the island of Smögen, the son of a herring fisherman, Bertil went to sea at fifteen as a deckhand on a boat called Ebba, and earned his skipper's certificate at the fisheries school in Lysekil at twenty-three. In 1972 he bought his own trawler, the Ebba Maria, with a bank loan, his father's blessing and a promise to his fiancée that he would be home for Midsummer. He was, nearly every year. For thirty-six years he fished shrimp, herring and mackerel in the Skagerrak, and when the cod collapsed in the nineties he kept his crew employed by switching to Norway lobster.
He was also a volunteer with the Swedish Sea Rescue Society for forty years, and was called out on stormy nights more often than he counted. In 2005 he was awarded the Society's silver badge and wore it, at the insistence of his wife Ingegerd, for precisely one afternoon.
He married Ingegerd in 1968 and they raised Anders and Helena in a red wooden house above the harbour, where the kitchen smelled of boiled shrimp and coffee, and where every August the whole family and half the town sat down to a kräftskiva, with crayfish, paper hats and songs. Bertil led the singing, badly. Their son Anders, an engineer at Volvo in Gothenburg, would arrive with a new car every few years; Bertil admired it and went on driving his old one the nine hundred metres to the harbour. A lifelong IFK Göteborg supporter, he listened to matches on deck with the engine off.
He retired in 2008 and spent his days mending nets he would never use again and giving advice that nobody asked for and everybody took. Bertil died on 26 August 2023 at home in Lysekil, a few days after the last crayfish party of the summer, with Ingegerd and his children beside him. He leaves Ingegerd, Anders, Helena and five grandchildren.
“The sea is honest. Be honest back.”
- Faith
- Lutheran
- Place of birth
- Smögen, Bohuslän
- Resting place
- Ashes scattered in the Gullmarsfjord, off Lysekil
- Passed away
- 26 August 2023, Lysekil
Funeral Service
Sunday, 10 September 2023 at 12:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Deckhand
Fishing boat Ebba1959 – 1967 · Smögen
Went to sea at fifteen, learning the Skagerrak from his father's generation.
Skipper's certificate
Fisheries School, Lysekil1966 – 1967 · Lysekil
Qualified as a skipper at twenty-three.
Married Ingegerd Persson
1968 · Lysekil
A marriage of fifty-five years.
Owner and skipper, trawler Ebba Maria
Ebba Maria (LL 217)1972 – 2008 · Lysekil
Thirty-six years fishing shrimp, herring and Norway lobster.
Volunteer crewman
Swedish Sea Rescue Society1975 – 2015 · Lysekil
Forty years on call for stormy nights.
Tap an organisation to find others who studied or worked there.
Family & connections
Bertil is survived by
- Ingegerd Karlsson· Spouse
- Anders Karlsson· Son
- Helena Karlsson-Bergström· Daughter
- 5 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Bertil.
Knew Bertil? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- KA
Cousin in Minneapolis
Our grandparents left Bohuslän in 1911 and Bertil stayed. Every few years he posted a sealed jar of pickled herring across the Atlantic with a note that said, 'So you don't forget.' We never did. I still have the last jar, unopened, on the shelf.
- PL
Church of Sweden, Lysekil
He came to the Seamen's Sunday every June and sat beside the model ship in the aisle. After the sermon he would study its rigging and quietly say what was wrong with it. We fixed the ship in 2015, and he nodded at it. For Bertil, that was a hymn.
- LO
IFK Göteborg friend
We listened to every match together, Bertil on his radio and me on the telephone, thirty years of Saturday afternoons. When IFK lost he said, 'It will be better next season.' When they won he said, 'It will be worse next season.' About the sea he was never wrong, and about football he was always happy.
- MS
Fish buyer, Lysekil harbour
In twenty-six years of buying his catch I never weighed Bertil's boxes twice. He told you the weight and he was always right to the hundred grams. Trust was the one thing in Lysekil harbour that was not sold by the kilo.
- KN
Neighbour above the harbour
He left a bucket of shrimp on my porch every Friday for fifty years and always said it was 'surplus'. In fifty years there was never a surplus on that boat. When his hands grew old, he stopped. I have not turned off the porch light since.
- LP
Deckhand on the Ebba Maria for thirty years
Bertil said the sea gives you two warnings and then stops being polite. In thirty years on his deck I never saw him miss the second one. He sent us home early in 1999 when the sky was a pretty colour, and the storm arrived three hours later. Quite literally, we owe him our lives.
