Following the Vikings’ Trail

For weeks the crew of the recreated Viking ship "Havhingsten" lived just like the old sea warriors. After 44 days at sea and 1,700 kilometres of extensive rowing, they were welcomed enthusiastically in Dublin.

The modern adventure began with some wreckage discovered by two amateur divers in a fjord near Skuldelev, some 20 kilometres north of Roskilde in Denmark, in 1956.
Between 1957 and 1962 more than 20,000 fragments were recovered from the shallow seabed and the later drained excavation site. They belonged to an group of five ships from the 11th century which the Vikings had sunk as a barrier in a narrow waterway of the Roskilde fjord to protect against possible invasions. In 1969 the findings received their own exhibition hall which soon became a museum.
 
Modern Museum Design
The founders of the Viking museum in Roskilde wanted to strike a new path and bring the Norsemen´s cultural history to the present. And so a worldwide unique combination emerged consisting of a museum, a dockyard and associated labs for both academical and museum-related work. In the archaeological workshop ship findings from all over Denmark are measured and documented, while nearly 13,000 visitors a year can use the museum´s boats. The five copies of the Skuldelev findings are unique. The flagship of this "Viking fleet" – made of oak using contemporary tools such as axes and stone chisels – is the "Havhingsten", "sea stallion" in English. This 30-metre-long warship was built from 2000 to 2004 by a team of experts investing some 44,000 working hours for the construction.
 

An Archaeological Experiment

Once the scientists could determine the precise age and origin of the wooden findings in the 1990s by the dendrochronology method, they learned that the long boat "Havhingsten" had to have been built from Irish moor oaks in the vicinity of Dublin in around 1040.
Thus originated the project that came to conclusion in 2007 with the rebuilt boat entering the Dublin harbour: The original must have reached Roskilde by open sea in the 11th century. Being a warship, the shortest way was probably chosen to avoid weakening the crew´s fighting power too much. Thus the researchers figured out the Atlantic route round Scotland which the rebuilt "Havhingsten" now sailed in opposite direction from Roskilde to Dublin. The reconstruction was supposed to shed light on how the Vikings managed to cross Europe´s most dangerous seas with boats that were so light and easily damaged. How did the Viking ships behave, how were they manoeuvred, how did they reacted in rough seas? The knowledge acquired during 900 sea miles to the green isle and back were academically documented and will soon be made public in book form and exhibits.

Fearless Adventurers
After its completion in 2004, trial voyages in the Roskildefjord had to prove the "Havhingsten´s" seaworthiness. In summer of 2006, the first longer journey followed from Roskilde to Oslo and back. Among a total of 65 crew members, three Germans also took part in the test sailing. It took four weeks to travel to the Norwegian capital. The active crews members aboard lived like the old Vikings: each had just one square metre of space on the ship. However, this didn´t deter the young volunteers from all over the world – who offered up their summer vacation to the archaeology of naval vessels – to join the grand journey to Dublin a year later.
 
To Ireland, Ho!
The adventure began on the 1 July 2007: The "Havhingsten" left Denmark for the North Sea and circumnavigated Scotland before setting course for Ireland. It was anything but a comfortable cruise; the open dragon ship offered the sailors from Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland, the USA and Canada no protection from waves, wind, and rain. As at the time of the Vikings, the ship was driven only by wind. And whenever that wasn’t enough, the crew had use the oars. Duty was done in 4-hour shifts. Only the clothing was modern: caps and Gore-tex coats replaced the helmets and chain armour of former times.
The Dubliners celebrated the event of the arrival on 14 August as if an old friend had returned. Their last metres of the 1,600-kilometre-long journey from the Danish Roskilde to Ireland were transmitted live on the Internet by the Irish television. 
 
 

If you want to learn more about the fascinating life of the Vikings, their raids across Europe, their life-style as well as their art of ship-building and navigation, you’ll find it in WAS IST WAS Volume 58 “The Vikings”.
 

Text: RR, 20. 8. 2007
Fotos: Morten Nielsen, Werner Karrasch/ The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark

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