During the Antarctic summer season of 1949 the Norwegian sealer Norsel, which had been chartered by the expedition, landed the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition in Queen Maud Land in the Antarctic. In January 1951 the ship took down relief personnel and stores and for this trip the Admiralty, at the invitation of the planning committee, appointed the author as an observer. The decision to appoint a member of the navigation branch was made partly so that the techniques of ship handling and navigation in ice could be studied; and since the captain of Norsel, Captain Jakobsen, was extremely experienced in every aspect of ice navigation, a great deal of valuable information was acquired. The Institute had also suggested a number of astronomical observations that might usefully be made in polar areas and the Admiralty gave its approval for the observer to make them.