Nortraship policy in the Nopal line led by his son Per A. Lorentzen, who was later head of Nortraship's New York charter department. That was partly corrected after pressure from the London office in August 1940, but it damaged Lorentzen's position as head of Nortraship and was a recurring theme for his critics. One of the sternest opponents of Lorentzen was Hilmar Reksten, a maverick shipowner who had himself been in the spotlight for bending Nortraship rules. More crewing problems During the summer and the autumn of 1940, ship losses catapulted. From 9 April to 30 December 1940, Nortraship lost 96 vessels and hundreds of seamean, almost all in the North Atlantic trade. That resulted in an increasing number of Norwegian seamen taking land-based work in the US or changing to other countries' ships running in less dangerous areas. The shortage of seamen was a huge challenge for Nortraship and the Norwegian exile government. The seamen's organisations argued that the only effective remedy would be higher wages. That resulted in wage negotiations started in London in June 1941 which were concluded with a new and significantly higher wages agreement effective 1 September 1941. The British government was highly critical, but Nortraship and the Norwegian government's view was that it was impossible to withstand the seamen's demand. A second round of negotiations were concluded in an agreement effective 1 December 1942, with yet higher wages, which one was to last for the rest of the war. The need for strict discipline in wartime created other problems that were not easily solved. Even though the Norwegian government-in-exile decreed as early as 12 July 1940 that all Norwegian citizens above 18 had to register and take assigned work, that legislation was difficult to enforce as the government had no jurisdiction in the UK and no courts. That was facilitated by a law by the British government of 22 May 1941, the Allied Powers (Maritime Courts) Act 1941, which gave allied governments the power to establish their own courts on British soil in which all but the most severe cases could be tried. Seaman and vessel safety The biggest threat to the vessels was the Axis submarines, although mines, surface raiders and bombing from aircraft were also much feared. The main countermeasure was convoying, large groups of merchant vessels, from 20 to 100, protected by naval ships. In 1940, the Norwegian vessels were unarmed,