In 1993, the remains of a wooden boat were found during drainage works just north of the village of Gislinge, on the island of Sjælland. The boat was 7.7m long, 1.5m wide and had a number of characteristics which suggested it might be Viking Age in date: it had stepped stems, was clinker-built of overlapping planks and frames of oak and was built using both iron rivets and treenails.
The excavators weren’t far off with their original interpretation. Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) would later reveal that the boat had been built in and around the year 1130, just after the traditional ‘end’ of the Viking Age. This was no high-status vessel like some of the Skudelev and Roskilde ship-finds – this was an everyday working boat, which had put in many years hard service on the Lammefjord (which has since been reclaimed for agricultural use).
Given the centuries it had spent buried beneath the soil, the hull was remarkably well preserved, making it an ideal candidate for reconstruction. Just two years after the original timbers were lifted out of the ground, the Museum’s boatbuilders began working on their first Gislinge Boat reconstruction and Estrid was launched in 1995.
Open source boatbuilding
Fast forward 20 years and much has changed in terms of how we can communicate with our audience. The advent of the Internet has made it possible for us to reach out to audiences around the world and we wanted to try and explore the possibilities this has for us in terms of engaging a wider audience with the reconstruction work that goes on everyday at the boatyard. For some years now, the term open source has been lurking in the background when future boatbuilding plans were being discussed: was it possible for us to be more open in our approach to boatbuilding? Was there an audience that would be excited about and engaged in this process? Could we reach them and start a common dialogue?
During the winter of 2015, Søren Nielsen, head of the Maritime Reconstruction Department, bit the bullet and initiated the Gislinge Boat Open Source Project, securing funding from Kraks Fonden that made possible the leap from idea to reality. A project team was put together from across the various departments we have at the museum – boatbuilders, craftworkers, academics, guides and more – another new departure for us in terms of how we work.
At its core, the project is based on a number of key principles:
- We make the working drawings for the construction of the Gislinge Boat freely available for download on the project website, allowing other boatbuilders the chance to build their own version of the boat
- We document and present as much of the construction process as possible online, via the project website, Facebook and Instagram, so that all those interested can follow and become engaged in the process
- We explore the ways in which we can ‘involve’ guests at the museum in the construction process through new hands-on workshops based on the various processes involved in building a boat – everything from cleaving planks, to making rope and iron rivets – creating a dialogue between the boatbuilders and our visitors
The construction process has been progressing smoothly over the last number of weeks (you can see a day by day progression <link https: instagram.com vikingshipmuseum external-link-new-window external link in new>here…). The keel, fore and after stem are all completed and this weekend the stems were raised, ready for the next phase to begin. You can expect to see more film footage of this over the next weeks as our photographer, Werner Karrasch, works at full-speed to edit his recordings and get them online.
This Monday marks a red letter day in the project: the large 7m x 1m oak which has been lying patiently at the boatyard since it was brought out of the woods will be cleaved to begin production of the Gislinge boat’s planks. This is an event that only takes place every few years at the museum and is an opportunity not to be missed for all those with a love of oak and boatbuilding! The difference this time however, is that we now have social media platforms that allow us to instantly share the process with the virtual Gislinge Boat community, something we’re pretty excited about.
So those of you in the area, come and join us on Monday and experience the cleaving in real life. Those of you following the Gislinge Project from afar, we promise to have the smartphone at the ready, so keep an eye on Facebook and Instagram over the course of the day.
It’s going to be an exciting summer at the boatyard…
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