Category: Sailing ships

The hardest voyage – rowing and sailing a Viking ship from Wicklow to Portsmouth

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Viking Ship Sea Stallion sailing from Wicklow to Portsmouth

Viking Ship Sea Stallion sailing from Wicklow to Portsmouth

Viking Ship Sea Stallion sailing from Wicklow to Portsmouth

The Sea Stallion making it’s way from Wicklow to Portsmouth. Photos from
the press section of the Sea Stallion website. As usual, click on the images
for larger photos

The Viking Ship Sea Stallion is an extraordinary project to sail and row a reproduction Viking ship in the wake of the the originals – and it’s proving to be very hard work for the crew. The project issued this press release a few days ago:

‘It has been the hardest voyage yet,’ says project leader Preben Rather Sørensen over the ship’s VHF Tuesday morning.

The Viking ship Sea Stallion left Wicklow in Ireland at 12 noon on Sunday, and is now, Tuesday morning, running before the wind up the English Channel along England’s south coast with 56 tired crew members, who will soon have been sailing non-stop for 48 hours.

The crew went to the farthest limits of body and spirit in a dramatic night. When they go ashore this evening in southern England, they will have sailed the Sea Stallion further than ever before. This morning they have already sailed 220 nautical miles. Last year the ship sailed from Roskilde to Norway in 36 hours – 240 nautical miles in all. That record will be broken today.

The ship’s voyage from Ireland was extremely demanding. Lands End met the ship with threats in pitch darkness around midnight. There were three-metre-high waves from the Atlantic and the westerly reached gale force at times. We took three reefs in the sail.

We had to transfer a total of four members of the crew to the support vessel, Cable One – the last one at a quarter to five this morning. All four had been seasick so long that skipper Carsten Hvid feared for their health. They have all recovered now and in a short time will be sailed back to the Sea Stallion again. Cable One is equipped with several RIBs. These are big rubber dinghies with powerful outboard motors, and they cope well with even three-metre-high waves.

‘The Sea Stallion has coped with the enormous pressure just fantastically. It has never been pushed any where near so long and so hard. We have had no problems with the ship at all,’ says Preben Rather Sørensen.

‘But we have certainly had to bale out a lot of water, for in the hard weather we took innumerable tons of water in. It says a lot about the nature of the voyage and the ship’s quality as reconstruction that, despite half of the crew being constantly seasick, we have been able to handle the ship and manoeuvre quite safely, reefing in and out and trimming the sail without any great difficulty – despite the enormous forces with which the hard westerly wind has hit the hull and the rigging.’

By: Lars Normann

The Sea Stallion from Glendalough is a reconstruction of the Skuldelev-2 wreck excavated from the bottom of Roskilde Fjord in 1962. Scientific research has shown that she was built by Vikings in Dublin in 1042. For more information: http://www.havhingsten.dk

Tall ships exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

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Tall ships exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

Tall ships exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

Tall ships exhibition at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

Outstanding photographs by MAX on show at the
National Maritime Museum Cornwall exhibition.
Click on each one for a much larger image – you won’t
regret it!

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall is putting on an outstanding tall ships exhibition starting on the 1st July.

Part of the celebration surrounding the Funchal 500 Tall Ships regatta arrival in Falmouth in September, the Tall Ships photographic exhibition features images of the vessels, and will include the work of the renowned tall ship photographer, MAX.

The following notes come from the NMMC’s release:

‘The exhibition also explores the background of The Tall Ships’ Races and their role in fostering greater understanding between young people from all over the world. The first ever Tall Ships’ Race took place in 1956 with just 20 ships while now the event often boasts over 100, with thousands of crew members from as many as 50 different countries.

‘Sail Training International, organisers of The Tall Ships’ Races, were even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their activities promoting international friendship and understanding through sail training for young people.

‘Milly Newman, Exhibitions Development Assistant says: “Everyone at the Maritime Museum is incredibly excited about the Funchal 500 Tall Ships Regatta. For those that were here for the hugely successful ’98 Tall Ships event these breathtaking prints will serve as a reminder of the incredibly powerful scene these ships paint when under sail together. For those that missed one of Cornwall’s major highlights of the last 10 years this anniversary exhibition will whet their appetites for a truly spectacular experience yet to come.”

‘The Tall Ships photographic exhibition opens on 1 July and runs until 26 September.”

The Redoubtable at Trafalgar

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The Redoubtable at Trafalgar

Click on the photograph for a larger image

Talk of Barton Broad brings me to matters of Nelson, as it’s known that he stayed in the area in his youth, and would have sailed there. Legend even has it that he lost a chain and locket in the Broad’s depths.

And thinking of Nelson reminded me I’d taken this photo of a painting produced in 1805 by Louis Phillipe Crépin depicting the brave French ship Redoubtable in action at the Battle of Trafalgar. It hangs in the Paris Musée de la Marine.

One account of the role of the Redoubtable can found at the Wikipedia , but it’s interesting also to see Captain Lucas’s account here.

I think Turner painted the same scene several times, but I doubt he ever depicted the Victory’s Ensign hanging symbolically in the water from a broken flagpole.

An elderly retired Admiral comments: ‘Those bally Frenchmen never miss a trick when they have an opportunity to have a go at us Brits! Tried to keep us out of the Common Market several times. Of course I don’t mind going there on holiday and I’ll drink their wine, but there is a limit and these Froggies haven’t a clue where it might be… Pshaw!”

The Redoubtable at Trafalgar

Click on the photograph for a larger image