It may be the world’s largest Viking ship, but the 79-foot mast of the Draken Harald Harfagre still can’t compare to the mast atop One World Trade Center.
BY DENNIS LYNCH
Rarely has the sight of an approaching Viking longship been so eagerly welcomed by a coastal village.
The world’s largest Viking ship landed at Battery Park City’s North Cove Marina on Saturday to the sound of traditional Norwegian tunes and the cheers of an enthusiastic crowd. The Draken Harald Hårfagre will spend a week at the marina, where enthusiasts can take a tour of the Viking longship and meet her three dozen or so crewmembers who made the journey from Norway to America earlier this year, who are ready to answer any questions, one said.
Draken Harald Harfagre sailed past Lady Liberty on its way to North Cove Marina.
“This whole trip was geared toward New York — this is the big finale, so we’ve been preparing for a few days and making sure we’re on top of our game,” said crewmember Johnathan Olsen. “We’re all set and ready to rock, to give some tours and show the people what we’re about.”
The Draken Harald Harfagre and her crew pushed off from Haugesund, Norway in April, and spent five weeks crossing the Atlantic, then most of the summer sailing through Canada and around the Great Lakes. They spent the last few weeks sailing through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River to New York City.
But it was no pleasure cruise, said one sailor who was visiting New York for the first time.
“The crossing was really rough, especially between Greenland and Newfoundland — icebergs, hurricanes, lots of troubles,” Henrik Wallgren said.
The team behind the expedition charted their transatlantic crossing with stops in Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, to trace the route that Viking explorers led by Leif Erikson used a millennium ago. And their 115-foot-long ship was built just like the longships that the ancient Norsemen would have sailed to the New World.
Sigurd Aase, the Norwegian energy tycoon who financed the ship’s construction, had his country’s best traditional shipbuilders construct it with traditional tools and methods used by their Viking predecessors. They designed the ship based largely on archaeological sources and Viking literature, which means a step onto the oak-hulled “dragon ship” is as close to a step onto an authentic ancient Viking ship as you can get.
The Draken Harald Harfagre is named after Harald Harfagre — Harald Fair Hair — the king who unified Norway into a single kingdom.
It weighs as much as three dump trucks, has a 79-foot-tall mast made from a single piece of douglas fir, and sports a silk sail bigger than a tennis court.
Since no longship this large has existed for centuries, the crew had to spend months on the water off Norway’s coast figuring out exactly how to sail such a monster before even venturing far from shore, much less attempt to cross an ocean.
An exhibition on the ship’s construction is open all week at the Winter Garden in Brookfield Place, but on the weekend, the crew will run tours of the longship from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are available in the exhibition area at $10 for adults and $5 for kids up to age 17.
Visitors can check out the small, canvas “cabin” where two dozen sailors crammed in to sleep together, the modest galley where they ate their meals on the high seas, and grab a selfie with the huge, colorful dragon head that adorns the bow. One Queens woman admiring the dragon from the dock said she will be back this weekend for a tour.
“Its just a beautiful ship,” Lori Bentzen of Queens said. “It’s like our ancestors did years and years ago, and they’re still doing it to honor their history. It’s beautiful.”
Sigurd Aase, the Nordic history buff behind the Draken Harald Harfagre expedition, poses on the deck of the ship he financed.
A cheering crowd greeted the Nordic mariners when the arrived at Battery Park City last weekend.
