Viking longship replica set to begin voyage along East Coast
SEAN D. ELLIOT/THE DAY VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Crew members on the replica Viking ship Draken Harald Harfagre raised the ship’s lone sail as they took a training cruise in Fishers Island Sound off Groton, Conn., after departing Mystic Seaport Museum for the start of its East Coast Tour, today. The Draken is a clinker-built Viking longship, a reconstruction of what the Norse Sagas refer to as a “Great Ship.”
MYSTIC, Conn. >> A replica of a Viking longship that sailed across the Atlantic Ocean is scheduled to leave its current home in Connecticut.
The 115-foot Draken Harald Harfagre is set to sail out of Mystic Seaport Museum today. The Day reports that the Draken has been at the museum since 2016, where it has undergone maintenance while raising funds for the next leg of its voyage to Boothbay Harbor, Maine.
The vessel is expected to return to Mystic in October.
The ship left its home port of Haugesund, Norway, on April 26, 2016, to recreate the first trans-Atlantic crossing by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago. The ship stopped in Iceland and Greenland during the voyage.
The ship is powered by sails and oars, with a crew of 32.
