About the room's diary
The web version of the room log contains excerpts from the detailed logs kept for each of the six rooms during the expedition. It is kept by Claus Laage-Thomsen. who, together with the room foremen, will daily record the observations made in the various rooms aboard the ship. …. Description of the person's background and connection with the project.
Claus Laage-Thomsen has since 1982 participated in the building of and sailing with the Skuldelev 3-reconstruction, Roar Ege. He has since 2004 been room-foreman on board the Sea Stallion.
Together with the ship's logbook, the room logs will be used to describe and analyse the skills and seamanship necessary to sail such highly specialised Viking longships. They will also be used to describe the living and working conditions aboard the ship and the organisational and logistic aspects of preparing and accomplishing a voyage of this length in a 30 metre ship with a 65 man crew.
The ship and her crew are organised in the way described in Nordic literature from the 12th and 13th centuries. The skipper has overall responsibility. Beneath him are two mates (one for each watch). The rest of the crew are distributed among six rooms, one for each of the functions to be manned at sea: fore, tack room, midships, halyard room, aft and after deck. Each room has to foremen (one for each watch).
During the voyage, each room will document the various functions and procedures developed while handling the sail, raising and lowering the mast, handling the oars, rowing, and communicating along the length of the ship. Individual rooms will also document the functions for which they alone are responsible, e.g. steering procedures on the after deck and lookout activities in the fore. All routines and procedures will be documented in the room logs and by means of films and photographs.
En route, the crew will be exposed to impressions and living and working conditions very similar to those experienced in Viking times. Each crew member has less than 1 m2 at his or her disposal and personal belongings must take up no more than 80 litres. There is no privacy on board and personal hygiene, eating, sleeping, sickness and work must all be handled on open deck. And the only toilet is a bucket. Days are divided into four-hour watches, preventing periods of prolonged rest when sailing around the clock. To document living conditions on board, each room will describe how crew members tackle the system of watches, how they rest and sleep, eat and drink, how they wash themselves and cope with the primitive toilet facilities, how they dress under varying conditions, which personal belongings they use, their moods and spirits and their interactions with other crew members.
The web version of the room log will report the most interesting observations from the six official room logs. It will be edited in cooperation with the room foremen.