Historical Accuracy
I've posted a few times about the Sea Stallion of Glendalough, billed as the largest replica Viking ship ever built. First here, then here and finally here. As promised, the crew of the ship launched its planned invasion of Ireland a while ago. Unfortunately, the winds in the North Sea have been uncooperative, making sailing to Ireland impractical. So they fell back on the historically accurate method that any self-respecting Viking warrior would have used to get over there and start raiding.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The crew of a replica Viking longship dropped plans to sail across the North Sea on Monday because of unfavorable winds and was to be towed to a group of islands north of the Scottish mainland.The Sea Stallion of Glendalough, billed as the biggest Viking ship reconstruction to date, will be towed by a support ship to the main town on the Orkney islands before continuing its voyage to Dublin, where it is to arrive on Aug. 14.
"We have a timetable we have to stick to and the winds are not favorable to us," said Mette Busch of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, west of Copenhagen.
The initial plan was to travel non-stop from Roskilde to Dublin using only oars and sails — like Viking warriors did 1,000 years ago — but the weather intervened.
Just days after leaving Roskilde on July 1, the 100-foot-long ship was forced to make stops in Norway to await the right winds to cross the North Sea.
After sailing along the Norwegian coast for nearly two weeks, the crew decided to start the crossing early Monday, but westerly winds made it impossible, Busch said. The ship would need an easterly wind to push it across the North Sea.
"Vikings didn't have deadlines so they could sail whenever the winds permitted. They didn't have a reception committee jumping on the harbor in Dublin as we have," Busch said.
The support ship, Cable One, will tow the Sea Stallion to Kirkwall, the biggest town on Orkney, where it was set to arrive on Tuesday, she said.
We'd just like to point out here that pictures of the Sea Stallion of Glendalough frequently show her with a full complement of oars and she certainly is carrying a good-sized crew. But we fully understand the impulse to call in that historically accurate Viking tugboat. As I understand it, one of my ancestors made a fortune towing raiders to Ireland. Unfortunately, he lost it all in bad investments in Vinland waterfront property. Well, that's the story in the family, anyway.
History, World news | Gaius July 21, 2007
By Lars Walker, July 21, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
This is actually completely authentic in historic terms. Any informed Viking nut will tell you that the Vikings had tugboats, having invented the internal combustion engine sometime in the 8th Century (a fact wickedly suppressed by entrenched interests within the historical community). They only rowed for the exercise… and because it was faster, Vikings being stronger than marine engines.