Viking raid!

According to DR, this summer, 65 men from Roskilde Viking ships museum will undertake the first 'Viking raid' across the North Sea in over a thousand years. The following is a loose translation of the article:

The raid of the Sea Stallion of Glendalough (see image above) is intended to help archeaologists understand how the Vikings managed to undertake these dangerous and difficult voyages in such open and delicate ships. "we lack so much knowledge as to how Viking ships were built and sailed" says project leader Preven Rather Sørensen.
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The 'raid' leaves from Roskilde Fjord, via the Orkney Islands (to the north of Scotland) to Dublin in Ireland, from the first of July to the 17th of August, and with multiple stops along the way. There may be a detour to Stavanger in Norway depending on the wind. Some Norwegian scholars made a similar trip in 2005 (can often be seen repeated on Discovery channel) but they had an emergency motor on board. (The reason why that previous expedition was not termed a 'Viking raid' is because the Norwegian ship was a trading ship known as a knarr and the Sea Stallion is a war ship, known as a 'serpent', or 'Dragon'. The term 'Viking' is ambiguous for it does not actually refer to any one homogenous group of people. Rather it refers to people undertaking an action, such as a raid. Contemporary peoples might have seen Vikings as we today might view the military, or pirates.) The meteorologists have predicted a harsh opposing wind for the 1,700 km long stretch across the North Sea.

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At Orkney, difficult currents and high sea's lurk, and the Sea Stallion has a free board (the distance from the top of the side of the ship to the surface of the sea) of only one meter. As a result the crew will be followed by a modern ship, but this will not have the full capacity to carry all 65 men if the Viking ship should sink. The Sea Stallion will thus carry a full range of safety equipment and life rafts Sørensen relates. "We'll have so much safety gear we might suppose we could walk on water" he laughs.

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She is 30 metres long and 3.8 metres wide. The strangely foreign name (foreign to a Danish ear) is due to her being a replica of an Irish built ship from 1042AD (as far as I am aware, the ship is the largest replica of a Viking ship ever built) and the reason why an Irish ship was the model is becaus just such a ship was recovered from the waters of Roskilde Fjord. The Vikings had settled in Ireland where the available wood allowed for bigger ships to be built than home in Denmark. Archaeologists unearthed the original ship in 1962 along with four other types of viking ship and all are now on exhibit in the Viking ship museum.

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150 museum folk and volunteers will be sailing the ship in shifts, many of whom have already sailed the ship on a previous 'learning raid' to Norway and Sweden. (Have to show off to our cousins first). The crew have already engaged in an eighty day training period but have more days of intense training ahead of them. The ship has yet to be tested in the stormy conditions that can manifest themselves rapidly in the seas to the north of the British Isles.

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The Roskilde Vikings have already experienced just how monstrously difficult the bigger ship is to handle. It takes thirty pairs of hands to bring her about across the wind with the characteristic square sail.

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The Sea Stallion of Glendalough will winter in Dublin then return home again to Roskilde in the summer of 2008. The ship is due to be in the sea again and rigged by next week end (15 April).

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Danish TV news will follow the entire voyage and I shall post further developments on this blog. Unlike the Galatea-3 expedition, I'm hoping this coverage will be more than just what a few journalists get up to along the way.

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edited to add:

Viking ship museum's page.