Last Monday night Professor Hudgins made her way to the Wharf in D.C. for a deck tour of the Draken Harald Hårfagre, a hand-crafted Viking ship whose 34-person crew voyaged from Norway to America this summer.
Drawing of the 35-meter long Great Ship on the project’s Web site, www.drakenhh.com.
Usually, replicas of Viking ships are based on interpretations of archaeological material. But the creator of the project said, “We went the opposite way. We were based in a living Norwegian boat building tradition that has existed since the Viking Age. From there we worked backwards in time to recreate an ocean going Viking ship by using all available sources.” Sources include:
- Archaeological material
- The Saga literature and other sources from the Old Norse literature.
- Foreign contemporary sources from the Viking Age
- Visual representations of Viking ships
- Old sailing records, purchasing lists, reports, and more.
Dr. Hudgins was pleased to see a large contingent of female crew who helped sail the vessel across the Atlantic this summer. Young girls on the tour, in turn, saw what a resourceful, ocean-going sailor looked like.
Throughout the ship visitors could see the hand-carved ornamentation, including functioning symbols (marking measurements), a beautiful steering oar, and the god Odin’s two on-board ravens, Hugin and Munin. Dr. Hudgins also noticed all the ropes coated with tar, the beautiful dragon figurehead, and the 24-meter-high mast. Earlier this summer, the boat also stopped at Baltimore, Annapolis, and Ocean City. Its next stop will be New York.
