The Skuldelev warships

In 1962 archaeologists found the remains of five different Viking ships at the bottom of the Roskilde fjord, near the village of Skuldelev, in Denmark. The largest of those five ships was one of the longest Viking warships ever found. Measuring an impressive 30 metres long and 3.8 metres wide, the vessel was designed to transport a large crew of between 60 to 90 Vikings, but also was designed to sail at great speed and to be very manoeuvrable. Thanks to warships like those, the Scandinavians were able to gain military control of many parts of Europe during the Viking Age.


The reconstruction of a Viking ship

The five Skuldelev ships were taken to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, where scientific analysis of the timber revealed that the longest ship, named "Skuldelev 2", had actually been built in Dublin in the 11th century, at the time when the Irish city was a Viking settlement. The reason why a Viking boat built in Ireland ended up in the bottom of a fjord in Denmark remains a mistery.

In 2000, with the financial help of the Tuborg Foundation, the Viking Ship Museum started a project to reconstruct the "Skuldelev 2" warship. During four years, more than 600,000 visitors at the Viking Ship Museum watched the six boat builders working on the construction of a replica of the "Skuldelev 2" using the same tools, materials, and building methods that the Vikings would have used to build the original ship.

The result was the world’s largest reconstruction of a Viking warship: a 6.8-tonne vessel built with the timber of 300 oak trees, 2,000 metres of ropes, 7,000 hand-forged iron nails and rivets, a 14 metres-high mast, and a 118 m² sail of linen. The ship is 29.4 meters long, 3.8 meters wide, and can accommodate 60 oarsmen.

The four years of work at the museum’s shipyard helped to learn more about the craft of the Vikings. Historians believe that in the Viking Age a ship like that could have possibly been built in 6 months because there would be more people involved in the work as well as trained and specialised in different tasks. But there was still much more that could be learnt from the ship…

How could a Viking fleet sail the 1,600 km distance between Ireland and Denmark? How long would a sailing take from Denmark to Ireland? How could a ship like that survive the storms and waves of the North Sea? To get the answer to all those questions, the Viking Ship Museum organised a maritime expedition from Roskilde to Dublin using the reconstructed "Skuldelev 2" warship, in the very same way that the Vikings would have done 1200 years ago. The 20 million Danish kroner expedition (€2.7 million, $3.6 million) was one of the most adventurous marine archaeological projects ever attempted, and it also was a Viking expedition that nobody had done in the past 1000 years.

The Sea Stallion from Glendalough. Photo © Morten Nielsen / The Viking Ship Museum

A Viking expedition that nobody has done in 1000 years

On 4th September 2004 the reconstruction was launched in Roskilde by Queen Margrethe of Denmark, who christened the ship with the name Havhingsten fra Glendalough (Sea Stallion from Glendalough), referring to the monastic site of Glendalough, south of Dublin. The launch was attended by 15,000 visitors and was followed on TV by 52 million people around the world.

The next three years were spent testing the boat in Scandinavian waters, recruiting and training the crew, and preparing the details of the expedition. Safety was the most important issue in the expedition since there was a very real risk of being shipwrecked. The ship had to be equipped with life rafts and communication devices, and the crew had to attend cold water survival and maritime safety courses given by the Danish Navy.

At last, on 2nd July 2007, the expedition departed from Roskilde -where the ship was found in 1962- for the city of Dublin where the original Viking ship was built in the 11th century. It was estimated that the ship could sail the 1,000 nautical miles (1,600 km) of distance between the two towns in over a month.

The expedition is scheduled to cross the same waters and places than the Vikings did a thousand years ago: Denmark, southwest Norway, the Orkney Islands, west of Scotland, the Irish Sea, and Dublin. The North Sea and the Atlantic waters of Scotland are some of the most dangerous navigation areas in the world due to their rough and shifting weather, strong currents, and powerful tides. The Sea Stallion will have to cross those risky waters, as the original Viking ship did a thousand years ago.

The arrival in Dublin is scheduled for 19th August 2007, and contrary to 1000 years ago, the modern Vikings will be very welcome in Ireland this time. The Havhingsten and the crew will enjoy an official reception in Dublin, and the ship will then stay at the National Museum of Ireland as the centrepiece of a Viking exhibition.

After speding the winter in Ireland, the Sea Stallion from Glendalough will start in June 2008 her journey back to Denmark. The way back will be taken around the southern coast of England and then northwards across the North Sea to Roskilde, where the expedition should arrive finally on 17th August 2008.


Learning about Viking history and technology

The Vikings were among the greatest seafaring people in history. They crossed the Atlantic, arrived to America several centuries before Columbus, and conquered many parts of western and eastern Europe thanks to their navigational skills. Historians still have many questions about Viking marine technology, but the Havhingsten expedition is expected to shed some light on many of their questions.

The Viking crew onboard the Sea Stallion is made by 65 volunteers from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, The Netherlands, England, Germany, Australia, Canada and the USA. From helmsmen to cooks, each of them have a specific task within the team and they will all have to follow orders of the captain, who will give commands in Danish. During the journey the crew will live in the same conditions than the men of the Viking Age. The ship has no shelter from harsh weather such as rain or wind and has no lavatories either. They will all have to live and sleep in a very limited space of less than 1m² for each one of them. The hard sleeping conditions and the total lack of privacy will be a challenge for the 65 modern Vikings, but that will also help to better understand the challenges the Vikings faced on their long journeys.

The ship can sail at an average speed of 7 knots (12.5 km/hour) but the Vikings had to make many stops on their journeys because the ships could only carry limited amounts of water and food, and the crew would need as well some time ashore to gain some rest from the lack of comfort in the ship. Adverse weather conditions would also change navigation plans, obliging the ship to stop and wait for several days.

All the experiences and data gathered during the journey will start to be analysed at the Viking Ship Museum once the ship returns to Roskilde in 2008. Experts and academics will then discuss the findings, which will be followed by the publication of reports, exhibitions and films for the general public.

So far the expedition has received a lot of international attention. Several hundred articles have been already published on the international press, and many programmes have been broadcast on radio and on TV stations in Europe, America, Asia and Australia. Denmark's National Television DR and Britain's BBC are currently producing programmes about the journey which will be shown on many TV channels around the world. Moreover, hundreds of thousands have visited the expedition’s official website, where it is possible to follow the latest news and the current location of the ship.


This article was published in Scandinavica.com in August 2007

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