Not
everybody can take so much time free from other engagements,
says captain Carsten Hvid
Photo:
The Viking Ship Museum
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20th November2007 After
the year’s great voyage from Roskilde to Dublin, the Sea
Stallion needs new hands. So you can now enrol for next year’s
sea crossing when the ship is to sail home from Dublin to Roskilde. At
first, this may sound self-contradictory. The year’s trip to Dublin
was in many ways a great experience for the crew. Sailing in a Viking
ship the size of Sea Stallion can offer – a lot of fantastic days at
sea in some of Europe’s most challenging waters, rain and cold,
several days in harbour, and enormous amounts of attention from the
whole world. But
a project like the Sea Stallion is very demanding.
Space
for private life is very limited
Photo:
Werner Karrasch,
The Viking Ship Museum
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- Rather a lot
of the crew who took part in the seven-week long crossing had been
members since the launch in 2004 and that required up to 120 days of
preparation and sailing – including 6 weeks’ training in the
previous two years. It is clear that not everybody can take so much
time free from other engagements without being forced to stop at some
point, explains the captain, Carsten Hvid -
Most of the crew are volunteers and without their enormous efforts
this project would never have got off the ground. But many have now
reached their limit, so we need to bring the crew up to strength. The
project has just completed an evaluation among the crew, who fully
back the project, and the Viking Ship Museum is now hard at work
planning next year’s trip. The ship has to come home to Roskilde
again and there really are a lot of things that need doing.
The
Sea Stallion in open sea
Photo:
Werner Karrasch,
The Viking Ship Museum
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- One very big
challenge in taking on new crew is that we don’t have a ship to
train with. Up until now, we have always had the Sea Stallion just at
hand, and the many training weekends have been based in the museum
harbour in Roskilde. But our ship is currently being exhibited at the
National Museum in Dublin, so we will have to tackle the very
important process of selecting the right people in an untraditional
way, says Carsten Hvid. Sailing
the world’s biggest reconstruction of a Viking ship puts great
demands on both the social skills and the sailing skills of the crew.
There is a long list of challenges faced by every member of the crew:
- Physical
demands, with rowing and hard sailing for many hours at a time
- Cold days and
nights
- Loads of rain
for days and days without shelter
- Lack of sleep
for many hours
- Minimal privacy
- Primitive
sleeping conditions on board
- Severe weather
conditions
- Many days in
harbour
Despite all this,
most of the current crew want to take another spell anyway. But
perhaps there are others out there who would like to grab the chance
of spending six days a week in pouring rain? "We
hope there are, of course. Over the summer, there were a lot of people
who wanted to join us. And there are undoubtedly more people who would
fit perfectly into the project", concludes Carsten Hvid. You
can apply on-line on the Sea Stallion website. Details of how the
Viking Ship Museum will decide the best qualified have not yet been
worked out.
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