An American researcher drowns after a Viking replica ship sinks off Norway's coast

A historic journey ended in tragedy this week when a Viking replica ship capsized off the coast of Norway, killing an American archaeologist who was part of its international crew.

The six-person team had been piloting the open wooden ship, named Naddodd, on a roughly 1,000-mile trip from the Faroe Islands to Trondheim, Norway.

"This expedition, honoring the Viking navigator Naddodd, aims to preserve Viking culture and navigational skills for future generations," Sail2North expeditions, which organized the voyage, said in an Instagram post in May.

The team — made up of four Swiss, one Faroese and one American — departed on Saturday from Suðuroy, the southernmost of the 18 Faroe Islands, for what was expected to be a several-day journey.

But on Tuesday evening, met with stronger-than-expected winds and high waves, it capsized off the Norwegian coastal town of Stad.

The Norwegian Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) told CNN that the boat sent out a distress signal at around 5:45 p.m. local time, but when rescuers arrived, crew members signaled that they were safe.

They issued another distress call around 8 p.m. local time, at which point local civilian boats got to the scene and saw the ship had capsized. Five members of the crew managed to board an inflatable life raft and were airlifted to safety within an hour, the JRCC said, but one person was trapped beneath the boat.

Emergency responders battled tough conditions, including 40-knot winds and 16-foot waves, according to a video posted to social media by Norway’s Sea Rescue Society.

The following morning, once conditions improved, rescuers found a body beneath the capsized boat.

On Friday, Sail2North identified the victim as 29-year-old Karla Dana, whom it had previously described as "the youngest member of our crew and embodies both the curiosity of a field researcher and the boldness of an adventurer."

Dana, an archaeologist and field researcher, had worked in a number of countries, from Costa Rica to Germany to Morocco to Taiwan, according to her LinkedIn page. She was a member of the prestigious Explorers Club, and was pursuing a master's degree in archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland.

In a joint statement shared with Sail2North, Dana's sister and her fiancé said she "tackled every adventure with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye."

"She always made life look easy," Alejandra Dana and Grant McDaniel wrote. "She created a light that illuminated everyone around her everywhere she went. If you ever had the opportunity to know her, consider yourself one of the luckiest people on this planet."

Dana had shared on LinkedIn earlier this year that she was looking forward to participating in the Viking expedition.

"Thrilled to be a part of this crew, fearlessly embarking on this Nordic voyage on a Viking ship replica across the North Sea, pushing through physical and mental limits to sail into history," Dana wrote.

Dana also authored several posts for the expedition's blog, which is now password-protected.

"It's hard to keep excitement from turning into fear when you see those waves casually tossing around huge modern boats like toys," she wrote in a post published Wednesday, according to the BBC. "But there's a wild beauty in the North Sea, a reminder of nature's raw power, and I feel incredibly lucky to be part of this adventure."

Authorities believe a strong wave was likely responsible for the capsizing, which they are viewing as a "tragic accident" rather than a criminal matter, according to the Associated Press.

Sail2North said on Friday that its crew was made up of "highly experienced explorers who undertook extensive training" and "took every precaution to ensure their safety."

The other crew members include the 56-year-old captain and expedition leader, a 54-year-old artist and seaman who holds a Guinness World Record for rowing across two oceans in the same year, a 37-year-old extreme sports aficionado, a 41-year-old photographer and a 50-year-old engineer.

"Despite their diligent efforts and adherence to these measures, the outcome was unforeseen and deeply upsetting," it said, adding it is committed to supporting Dana's family and honoring her legacy.

A spokesperson with a public relations firm representing the organization told NPR over email that the rest of the crew is traveling home to be with their families and "continues to receive support from a dedicated care team." It anticipates providing further updates next week.

[snip] I had been told that when their chieftains died cremation was the least part of their whole funeral procedure, and I was, therefore, very much interested to find out more about this. One day I heard that one of their leaders had died. They laid him forthwith in a grave which they covered up for ten days till they had finished cutting-out and sewing his costume. If the dead man is poor they make a little ship, put him in it, and burn it. If he is wealthy, however, they divide his property and goods into three parts: one for his family, one to pay for his costume, and one to make nabid [probably a Scandinavian type of beer] which they drink on the day when the slave woman of the dead man is killed and burnt together with her master. They are deeply addicted to nabid, drinking it night and day; and often one of them has been found dead with a beaker in his hand. When a chieftain among them has died, his family demands of his slave women and servants: 'Which of you wishes to die with him?' Then one of them says: 'I do'; and having said that the person concerned is forced to do so, and no backing out is possible. Even if he wished to he would not be allowed to. Those who are willing are mostly the slave women.

So when this man died they said to his slave women: 'Which of you wants to die with him?' One of them answered, 'I do.' From that moment she was put in the constant care of two other women servants who took care of her to the extent of washing her feet with their own hands. They began to get things ready for the dead man, to cut his costume and so on, while every day the doomed woman drank and sang as though in anticipation of a joyous event.

When the day arrived on which the chieftain and his slave woman were going to be burnt, I went to the river where his ship was moored. It had been hauled ashore and four posts were made for it of birch and other wood. Further there was arranged around it what looked like a big store of wood. Then the ship was hauled near and placed on the wood. People now began to walk about talking in a language I could not understand, and the corpse still lay in the grave; they had not taken it out. They then produced a wooden bench, placed it on the ship, and covered it with carpets of Byzantine dibag [painted silk] and with cushions of Byzantine dibag. Then came an old woman whom they call 'the Angel of Death', and she spread these cushions out over the bench. She was in charge of the whole affair from dressing the corpse to the killing of the slave woman. I noticed that she was an old giant-woman, a massive and grim figure. When they came to his grave they removed the earth from the wooden frame and they also took the frame away.

They then divested the corpse of the clothes in which he had died. The body, I noticed, had turned black because of the intense frost. When they first put him in the grave, they had also given him beer, fruit, and a lute, all of which they now removed. Strangely enough the corpse did not smell, nor had anything about him changed save the colour of his flesh. They now proceeded to dress him in hose, and trousers, boots, coat, and a mantle of dibag adorned with gold buttons; put on his head a cap of dibag and sable fur; and carried him to the tent on the ship, where they put him on the blanket and supported him with cushions. They then produced nabid, fruit, and aromatic plants, and put these round his body; and they also brought bread, meat, and onions which they flung before him. Next they took a dog, cut it in half, and flung the pieces into the ship, and after this they took all his weapons and placed them beside him. Next they brought two horses and ran them about until they were in a sweat, after which they cut them to pieces with swords and flung their meat in to the ship; this also happened to two cows. Then they produced a cock and a hen, killed them, and threw them in. Meanwhile the slave woman who wished to be killed walked up and down, going into one tent after the other, and the owner of each tent had sexual intercourse with her, saying: 'Tell you master I did this out of love for him.'

It was now Friday afternoon and they took the slave woman away to something which they had made resembling a doorframe. Then she placed her legs on the palms of the men and reached high enough to look over the frame, and she said something in a foreign language, after which they took her down. And they lifted her again and she did the same as the first time. Then they took her down and lifted her a third time and she did the same as the first and the second times. Then they gave her a chicken and she cut its head off and threw it away; they took the hen and threw it into the ship. Then I asked the interpreter what she had done. He answered: 'The first time they lifted her she said: "Look! I see my father and mother." The second time she said: "Look! I see all my dead relatives sitting round." The third time she said: "Look! I see my master in Paradise, and Paradise is beautiful and green and together with him are men and young boys. He calls me. Let me join him then!"'

They now led her towards the ship. Then she took off two bracelets she was wearing and gave them to the old woman, 'the Angel of Death', the one who was going to kill her. She next took off two anklets she was wearing and gave them to the daughters of that woman known by the name 'the Angel of Death'. They then led her to the ship but did not allow her inside the tent. Then a number of men carrying wooden shields and sticks arrived, and gave her a beaker with nabid. She sang over it and emptied it. The interpreter then said to me, 'Now with that she is bidding farewell to all her women friends.' Then she was given another beaker. She took it and sang a lengthy song; but the old woman told her to hurry and drink up and enter the tent where her master was.

When I looked at her she seemed completely bewildered. She wanted to enter the tent and she put her head between it and the ship. There the woman took her head and managed to get it inside the tent, and the woman herself followed. Then the men began to beat the shields with the wooden sticks, to deaden her shouts so that the other girls would not become afraid and shrink from dying with their masters. Six men entered the tent and all of them had intercourse with her. Therefore they laid her by the side of her dead master. Two held her hands and two her feet, and the woman called 'the Angel of Death' put a cord round the girl's neck, doubled with an end at each side, and gave it to two men to pull. Then she advanced holding a small dagger with a broad blade and began to plunge it between the girl's ribs to and from while the two men choked her with the cord till she died.

The dead man's nearest kinsman now appeared. He took a piece of wood and ignited it. Then he walked backwards, his back towards the ship and his face towards the crowd, holding the piece of wood in one hand and the other hand on his buttock; and he was naked. In this way the wood was ignited which they had place under the ship after they had laid the slave woman, whom they had killed, beside her master. Then people came with branches and wood; each brought a burning brand and threw it on the pyre, so that the fire took hold of the wood, then the ship, then the tent and the man and slave woman and all. Thereafter a strong and terrible wind rose so that the flame stirred and the fire blazed still more.

I heard one of the Rus folk, standing by, say something to my interpreter, and when I inquired what he had said, my interpreter answered: 'He said: "You Arabs are foolish."' 'Why?' I asked. 'Well, because you throw those you love and honour to the ground where the earth and the maggots and fields devour them, whereas we, on the other hand, burn them up quickly and they go to Paradise that very moment.' The man burst out laughing, and on being asked why, he said: 'His Lord, out of love for him, has sent this wind to take him away within the hour!' And so it proved, for within that time the ship and the pyre, the girl and the corpse had all become ashes and then dust. On the spot where the ship stood after having been hauled ashore, they built something like a round mound. In the middle of it they raised a large post of birch-wood on which they wrote the names of the dead man and of the king of the Rus, and then the crowd dispersed. [/snip]
Ahmad Ibn Fadlan (fl. 920s): from The Risala: by the River Volga, 922: Viking Ship-Burial

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