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Epic Viking longship journey
01/07/2007 20:44 - (SA)
Copenhagen - An 11th-century Viking longship reconstructed to its original condition in Denmark has set sail for a seven-week voyage across the North Sea to its home port of Dublin, powered only by sails and oars.
The vessel, called the Sea Stallion from Glendalough, is the largest Viking warship ever rebuilt.
The crew rowed the vessel out of the Danish port of Roskilde under sunny skies as thousands of onlookers cheered from the docks.
After a 44-day and 900-nautical-mile crossing using only its huge square sail, the longship and its 65 crew will reach Ireland, where it was originally built in the Glendalough forest in 1040.
The longship took part in clashes between the Anglo-Saxons and Normans in 1050-1060, when many Danish Vikings lived in Ireland.
The boat was sunk in the Roskilde fjord with four other ships at the end of the 11th century to defend the Danish coast from invading Vikings from Norway.
The hull of the oak ship was found in 1962, and reconstruction began in 2000 at the dockyards of the Viking Ship Museum - a task that was to take four years.
Shipbuilders from Denmark, the Feroe Islands, Norway and the Aaland Islands took part in the reconstruction, using the same methods the Vikings used and tools specially made to resemble those used in the Viking era.
The ship is 30 metres long, 3.8m wide and has a draught of 0.9m. It weighs 25 tons and has 120 square metres of sail on its 14.5m mast.
It is due to arrive in Dublin by August 14.
- SAPA
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