Photo: Ian Leask

In early July, the 114-foot long  Draken Harald Hårfagre, the largest Viking replica ever built, was sailing across the North Sea,  from Haugesund in Norway.  Three days out, in high seas, the ship’s mast failed and went over the side.  No one was injured. The ship diverted to Lerwick where it arrived safely.  Given the nature of Viking sailing rigs, which have to be relatively light in order to be raised and lowered, the original Vikings must have had to deal with similar dismastings fairly often.

The modern day re-enactors, however did not row to shore. Michael Grey at Lloyd’s commented on a BBC 4 interview with the ship’s captain:

“What I found interesting was that the interviewer on the radio asked the Viking ship master whether there were any oars onboard, and if so, why were these not used. ‘Well, the learned Scandanavian replied, ‘regulation dictates that we are limited to the number of person allowed onboard for a voyage between Norway and the UK. The ship needs 100 persons to row and we were only allowed 30 on the vessel.’ Clearly, the Vikings would have had a very difficult time in savaging the UK if these requirements had been in place during the early mediaeval period.”

So, if the Viking ship replica lacked the personnel to row the ship to port, what did they do? Why they started the engines, of course.  The engines were also required by Norwegian Government safety regulations. Fortunately, the engines are well hidden.  (The ship also has a hidden stove and toilet aboard.)  So, whatever the ship lacked in crew with oars, it made up in hidden horsepower.

Thanks to Roberta Weisbrod for contributing to this post.

Viking longship in harbour after mast snapped