Posted on 06/25/2008 5:33:36 PM PDT by blam
Raiders or Traders?
A replica Viking vessel plying the North Sea this month is part of an effort to learn more about what the Norsemen were really up to
By Andrew Curry
Photographs by Carsten Snejbjerg
Smithsonian magazine, July 2008
Werner Karrasch / The Viking Ship Museum, Denmark
From his bench toward the stern of the Sea Stallion From Glendalough, Erik Nielsen could see his crewmates' stricken faces peeping out of bright-red survival suits. A few feet behind him, the leather straps holding the ship's rudder to its side had snapped. The 98-foot vessel, a nearly $2.5 million replica of a thousand-year-old Viking ship, was rolling helplessly atop waves 15 feet high.
With the wind gusting past 50 miles an hour and the Irish Sea just inches from the gunwales, "I thought we'd be in the drink for sure," says Nielsen, 61, a retired geologist from Toronto.
It was August 6, 2007, and the Sea Stallion's crew of 63 had been underway for five weeks, sailing from Denmark to Dublin on a voyage that would culminate 35 years' research—"the best living-archaeology experiment ever conducted anywhere," Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum of Ireland, calls it.
As Nielsen and some crewmates struggled to keep the Sea Stallion upright, four others went to work at the stern. Kneeling on the ship's heaving, rain-slicked deck, they hauled the 11-foot rudder out of the water, traded the broken leather straps for jury-rigged replacements made of nylon and reattached the new assembly.
Reducing the sail to a minimum, the crew sailed on at nine knots. As the ship plowed from wave to wave, a full third of the Sea Stallion's hull was often out of the water. Ahead lay the Isle of Man, 15 hours away.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
(a repeat, I think)
Actually, we were just looking for an all-night pub and a lap dance. Kinda hard to find either back then.
Both I think.
I think it depended on whether you were strong or a wussy feminized nation.
Grandfather on Dad’s side was 100% and from Lillehammer. Hard working, honest people!
Traders, a few road trips got a little out of hand...
It’s called developing a market.
The French haven’t changed much in 1163 years.
Well my great grandfather seemed to come from the “raiders” side according to my research.
Just imagine what the world would be like if we had the Oakland Traders Pro Pro football team. The Chargers would only use green electricity. Seattle Seadoves, Denver Ponies. Baltimore Colts colts are kinda like ponies if you don’t care about keeping facts correct. We have much more work to do with these team names. Arizona Cardinals is there some sinister aspect of a cardinal that’s makes them tough guy type of bird? Or has PC already consumed them.
Are you an old AFC West guy?
Think Richelieu ?
” Just imagine what the world would be like if we had the Oakland Traders Pro Pro football team “
Or the San Francisco Traitors.
"Lo there do I see the line of my people, they do bid me come, take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla. Where the brave will live forever!"
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Thanks Blam. |
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In 845, the Viking raider and extortionist extraordinary Ragnar Lothbrok slipped up the Seine with 120 ships—an estimated 5,000 men—to Paris, where King Charles the Bald paid him 7,000 pounds of gold and silver to leave in peace. (A contemporary wrote that "never had [Ragnar] seen, he said, lands so fertile and so rich, nor ever a people so cowardly.")
Is there a new AFC? I sorta quit football when it left the LA area. I have live mostly in Texas and California so I did at one watch the local team.
Back to the thread. I suppose that would depend on if you sold to the Vikings at the price they wanted.
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