Dragon Harald Fairhair (ship) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Dragon Harald Fairhair is a large replica Viking longship under production in the municipality of Haugesund

Haugesund

is a town and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.-Location:Haugesund was separated from Torvastad as a town and municipality of its own in 1855. The rural municipality of Skåre was merged with Haugesund on January 1, 1958. Haugesund is a small municipality, only 73 km²...

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. When finished, the Dragon Harald Fairhair will bring the seafaring qualities of a warship

Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...

from the old Norse sagas to life. It will be a ship that combines ocean-crossing sailing capabilities with a warship's use of oars.

Construction and launch

Building began in March 2010. The launching of the longship

Longship

Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship’s design evolved over many years, beginning in the Stone Age with the invention of the umiak and continuing up to the 9th century with...

is scheduled for the summer 2012. Because no one today has real experience handling a Viking ship of this size, the initial period will be one of exploring how to sail and row the ship, and for experimentation with the rigging along the coast of Norway

Norway

. By summer 2013 the longship should be ready for its first real expedition.

An oceangoing Norwegian warship

The longship is a '25-sesse' (25 pairs of oars) – in other words, it is equipped with 50 oars. Each oar is powered by two men and the ship must have a crew of 100 persons, minimum. Under sail it requires a crew of 12–14 people.

When finished, the Dragon Harald Fairhair will be 35 metres (114.8 ft) long with a beam of approximately 7.5 metres (24.6 ft) and a displacement

Displacement (ship)

A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load...

of about 70 metric tons. The longship is constructed in oak and it will carry 300 sqm of sail.

The Dragon Harald Fairhair will be the largest Viking ship built in modern times. But in the Viking Age

Viking Age

Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...

, many such ships were of this size. At that time, it would be quite typical for a Norwegian warship . The law of the land in those days included standards that required Norwegian provinces (fylker) to cooperate in supplying 116 such warships of 50 oars size (25 pairs of oars) for duty in the Norwegian fleet of warships.

Norwegian boatbuilding traditions

Copies of Viking ships are usually based on interpretations of archaeological material. But in construction of the Dragon Harald Fairhair an alternative method has been used. It was decided to begin with the living tradition of Norwegian boatbuilding, with roots that can be traced directly to the Viking Age. The foremost Norwegian traditional boat builders are involved in the project. Their knowledge of traditional boatbuilding is supplemented with the results of investigations carried out on archaeological material, source material in Norse literature, literature from the same period from foreign sources, iconographic material, etc. The goal of the project is to recreate in this manner an oceangoing warship of 50 oars taken right out of the Norse Sagas.

External links

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