Sea Stallion's summer voyage began on the 6th July and it is planned that the ship will return to Roskilde again on 26th July. You can follow the voyage on the Viking Ship Museum's website, where the ship's electronic equipment sends data about their course, speed and position to an interactive map every 15 minutes.
During the three weeks of the summer voyage, the 55-strong crew will share the limited space available on board the ship. They will work together on every aspect of daily life at sea: sailing, rowing, making food and eating. They will sleep close to each other, either on the ship's deck while sailing or in large tents when on land. They will sail as much as possible - preferably in a continuous watch system and hopefully with lots of wind.
The course is set - for the Baltic Sea?
The ship is sailing off into the blue. The crew have not made any plans to visit particular destinations or made any agreements about visits to harbours. The goal with this year's tour is to get as many sea-miles under the keel as possible. Training the crew is the key aim of this year's summer voyage.
The starting point is to set course for the Baltic Sea. There is plenty of room here to train sailing over longer distances, but it will be the weather and wind that will dictate whethere the ship comes to Kiel, Kalvehave or Karlskrona.
'Within the next few years, the Museum plans to undertake another long voyage, and in order to do that, we need to have a crew that can tack with one hand in the dark, as the saying goes', says Søren Rasmussen, skipper on the summer voyage. He was also skipper on a stage of the 2013 summer tour and tells that, 'We have been lucky with recruiting over the winter and gotten many new members in the guild, but this also means that we have great need of training, which will be addressed during the summer voyage'.
Sea Stallion from Glendalough is sailed by a volunteer crew, comprised of almost 200 members and that number is still rising, as the guild are still open for new members. It is the boat guild that is responsible for maintaining the ship and undertaking regular training sailings. The summer presents the opportunity for a slightly longer voyage.
In the aft - the rear of the ship - the skipper, mates and helmsmen are found. They are also focused on training: the new navigators have to hone their craft, the trainee skippers have to log some hours as skipper on Sea Stallion and perhaps some of the helmsmen also have their eye on a future role as mate?
Nothing is static on Sea Stallion, apart from the good humour and the desire to sail this ship with the special history to perfection.
