Meet the team

Søren Nielsen

Søren is the Leader of the Maritime Craftwork, Reconstruction and Public Activities Department here at the Museum. Søren is the “owner” of the Gislinge Boat Project and responsible for developing the open source boatbuilding concept and designing the project itself. 

Martin Rodevad Dael

Martin is a wooden boatbuilder and team leader at the boatyard. He is in charge of the construction of the Gislinge boat and coordination of the boatbuilding team. Martin has been working as a boat builder in Great Britain, USA and Denmark among other places, with a lot of different wooden boat types.

Marie Krogh Nielsen

Marie is team leader for public activities at the museum and leader of the Gislinge Boat Project. One of the main ambitions with the project is to push the boundaries for how much we can involve the public in the various processes involved in the construction of the boat. She has therefore developed a programme of activities for our visitors, so that guests can experience everything from iron smelting and ropemaking to boatbuilding. 

Marie Broen

Marie is the leader of the school service here at the museum. Her role in the Gislinge project is to explore new ways in which the different crafts can be incorporated into teaching for school groups. Marie has developed a trial education programme in collaboration with Absalons skolen in Roskilde, who will spend a total of six days in different workshops over the course of the project.

Tríona Sørensen

Tríona is a curator in the exhibitions team. She is responsible for the accompanying exhibition about the project at the boatyard and is also involved in the communication of the project via the Gislinge website, blog and other social media. 

Rikke Johansen

Rikke is leader for communication, marketing and sales at the museum. She is the one who take care of all the technical side of the project, including the project website, Facebook, Instagram etc. 

Niels Jepsen

Niels is an apprentice boatbuilder at the boatyard. He is already a qualified carpenter, but has chosen to become a boatbuilder. After two years at the boatyard, Niels halfway through the apprenticeship and on his way to getting his boatbuilder diploma 

Lene Mellmann

Lene became a boat builder many years ago. After working with many wooden boats she spent two years as a travelling craftsman (naver) all over Europe. Lene is one of few female wooden boat builders

Birger Andersen

Birger is a boatbuilder. Birger has been working at the museum boatyard for many years, maintaining the museum’s boat collection and building reconstructions of historical ships and boats. Birger’s last project was the construction of a Viking age boat as part of a Viking exhibition at Martin Gropius Bau Museum in the middle of Berlin.

Ture Malthe Møller

Ture is a boatbuilder. After building Viking ships here at the museum boatyard, Ture founded his own boatbuilding company in Copenhagen together with another boatbuilder. He now divides his time between the two, and at the museum is working on the Gislinge Boat and other boats. 

Claus Bruun

Claus is a boatbuilder and ship carpenter and has many years’ experience with wooden boat and ship building. For the last number of years, Claus has spent the winters working on the National Museum ship collection and the summers here at the Viking Ship Museum

Anna Nørgaard

Anna is the museum’s weaver and has made many sails for our boat collection over the years. Anna is weaving a sail of flax for the Gislinge boat in collaboration with the Danish Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted. This is the first time she will produce a handwoven sail of flax, an exciting step forward in the field of maritime experimental archaeology. 

Carsten Hvid

Carsten is the rope maker here at the museum. He has produced hand-laid rigs for several of the other reconstructions in the museum’s boat collection and this summer, he will make a rig of lime bast, horsehair, sealskin and wool for the Gislinge Boat. 

Jonas Bigler

Jonas is the museum’s blacksmith. He is making rivets for the boat and will also run hands-on workshops for museum guests. This summer, he will experiment with forging tools and rivets of bog iron for the construction of the Gislinge Boat.

Silas Tavs Ravn

Silas is a nature guide apprentice and primarily works as our visitor’s guide to historical crafts and boatbuilding materials. He helps them find a way into the boatbuilder’s world, explaining boat construction and different boatbuilding techniques, as well as showing how it is done so people can try it out themselves.  Silas is also a regular contributor to the Gislinge blog.