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The largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

drakenhh.com

11–20 of 35 posts

Re: The largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

#15
post #3

If this was interesting, and you're ever in eastern Norway, our oldest city Tønsberg have been building ships the old way for years now. They started with Saga Oseberg, a copy of the Oseberg ship, ten years ago (here's the launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tigGYikk6A ) and have continued making others. You don't see any chainsaws in the building of these though; logs are split with axes, wedges and sledges, an…

Somewhat similarly the Mystic Seaport Museum[1] restores old ships using traditional methods. I believe they also offer classes on traditional shipbuilding methods.

It focuses on whaling history but have lots of other ships on exhibit and in the summer months have many shipbuilding related activities on site (figurehead carving, blacksmithing, etc) in addition to ship repair.

[1] https://www.mysticseaport.org/

Re: The largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

#18
post #8

Amazing ship, been laid up in Mystic Seaport for the last couple of years after crossing from Norway to the US through Iceland and Greenland. From what I have understood talking with people involved the billionaire builder got bored with the project after it completed the crossing. Here's a video of them sailing out in heavy conditions from Greenland across the labrador sea. Their Youtube channel has more videos of t…

From the video it looks absolutely terrifying. Those waves seem to constantly rise above the side of the ship, and there's large chunks of ice all around, and that's very far from the worst weather they could have encountered.

Yeah, luckily those longships are extremely seaworthy. The width and lack of height make them stable, and they bend and flex with the ocean.

There's a reason Eiriksson managed to cross the Atlantic and reach Newfoundland at the time, before anyone else (that we know of)

Re: The largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

#19
post #3

If this was interesting, and you're ever in eastern Norway, our oldest city Tønsberg have been building ships the old way for years now. They started with Saga Oseberg, a copy of the Oseberg ship, ten years ago (here's the launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tigGYikk6A ) and have continued making others. You don't see any chainsaws in the building of these though; logs are split with axes, wedges and sledges, an…

But why did they make the mast of douglas fir? Seems like a bit of an odd decision for a very fine ship since it is not native in Scandinavia.

Re: The largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

#20
May I recommend the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, close to Copenhagen. They have a number of original ships on display, and also a workshop where they build more. They take tourists for a quick trip on Roskilde Fjord. Their biggest ship turned out to have been built in Ireland, so when they built a replica, they sailed it to Dublin and back.
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