Showing posts with label traditional sailing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traditional sailing. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Oseberg Viking Ship Replica


In 1903 a Norwegian farmer, Oscar Rom, dug into a mound in one of his fields and found what has come to be called the Oseberg ship.

By the thirteenth century, we know that timbers from earlier ships were cleft and later they were sawn but the art of cleaving wide long boards for shipbuilding was lost for 800 years.



A team headed by Thomas Finderup, who built the large replica viking ships at Roskilde,Denmark, has developed what they believe to be methods used by shipwrights of that bygone era.

Currently the team is building a replica of the Oseberg ship. It is built entirely of cleft and hewn oak, no saws are used. You can follow this process on the Traditional Crafts Blog of the Heritage Crafts Association.
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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Stina Sailing from Sappi Islet

Our good friend Jan Eerala from Makholma Finland has his beautiful sailing skiff out on the water for the summer, in the Bothnian Sea. Some of his deft camera work from last year has been featured here recently and I, for one, find it hard to stay away.

I especially love the sound that accompanies Jan's videos, which are no more than the sounds that surround him. The difficult part of capturing these images with their natural sounds is keeping still enough that your own motions don't interfere.

Stina - 21/5/2011 - is sailing again from Jan Eerala on Vimeo.



Jan offered the history of his fine craft in the comments to this post and I thought I would add them here for everyone to see:

"Between Sweden and Alandia existed for nearly one hundred years a post boat route. Farmers and fishermen had to keep the post going. It lasted from early 1800 to about 1910."

"The boat used was small, but seaworthy klinkerbuildt crafts. Stina is not a replica, but has the same design as these postboats."

"She was designed by Eskil Halldin in 1982. He built it for his own use and I was lucky to have her in 1995. LOA 5.4m, no ballast but a wooden keel of one foot. Drought is about 2.5 feet."

"There must be enough of wind to keep her going, so in lighter weather I'm mostly motoring her. But for a boat without ballast, she's keeping her sail very well and gives in any conditions a good feel of security."

"Stina has some bad planks, so it's possible she will be for some time out of sight. But if all goes as planned, she's sailing this summer intensively."

"Best regards, Jan, Finland"


Thank you, Jan!
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