Hello!
Here we go again, sort of. Two, almost three years ago I tried to get a sponsored ticket to one of the legs of the “Clipper round the world” race. I really went to lengths to gather the votes back then. But they found someone better suited. It was their loss 🙂
I have found a new oppurtunity to explore the North Atlantic before attepting it with Kvark. The Draken Harald Hårfagre is the largest modern Viking longboat built. It is 35 m long, 8 m wide, has a draught of 2,5 m and weighs 95,5 tons. That is only about 150 times more than Kvark. Oh, and its sail area is 300 m2. That would make our 14 sqm sails a handkerchief or two for this Viking. Draken was hand made from scratch in Haugesund in Norway. Hand made means all the oak planks and all the 10000 nails of course. Okay, the engine it carries is not hand made. The construction started in 2010 and lasted until 2012, after which experiments with rigging and sailing started. Experiments had to be made, since nobody had ever sailed such a big longboat. And Draken is not a replica.
In the summer of 2016, she is to sail along the supposed path of the Icelandic Leif Eiriksson, arguably one of the first Westerners to set foot on North America. Leif tracked the route of the merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson, who claimed to have seen land west of Greenland after sailing off course for a while. At first, North America was named Vinland, since Leif found many grapes there, the source of wine. The voyage will start in May 2016 from Haugesund, pass Iceland, Greenland and end in the USA. The only shelter there is on deck is the tent you see on the above picture. Lovely!
Construction photos have a philia thing to them!
Well, the point of it all is that Draken Harald Hårfagre is looking for volunteers, both on deck and on shore. Did I apply? Yes. It would be a beyond-real experience to meet all the people that built the boat and of course to sail the North Atlantic on such a special vessel, to be a part of something historic. I’m not sure if it is quite what Neil Armstrong and NASA achieved when stepping on the moon, but the journey definitely is something that has not been done for about a thousand years. I hope there will be no “but”‘ in the next email I receive from them 🙂 This time no votes, no campaign for a textile company! Its all good.
