Danish Viking boat sails into Oslo, no pillaging

(Reuters) A Viking warship its constructors call the largest and most realistic built in modern times sailed into the Norwegian capital Oslo on Monday ending its first ocean voyage, with crew likening to a snake slithering across the sea. The Danish built 30-meter-long “Sea Stallion from Glendalough” is based on an 11th century ship, built near the settlement of Glendalough in Ireland, which had been sailed by Vikings to Denmark.

Mystech: Skeptical Irish monks throughout the Emerald Isle have begun boarding up monestaries and churchs just in case.

It took four years and 10 million Danish crowns (900,000 pounds) to build the new “Sea Stallion” using original techniques, tools and materials.

“We just didn’t know how she would sail, but it was fantastic,” the 40-year-old captain, Carsten Hvid, said, his hair and beard bleached blonde by the sun.

“If you stood at the back as she sailed and looked at the front you could see her moving and bending like a snake.”

Norwegian and Danish Vikings used longships to slice through seas raids around the British Isles, but on Monday the 61 crew members gently rowed their “Sea Stallion” past luxury yachts, motor boats and car ferries into Oslo for tourists to snap pictures and children to clamber over.

The crew, including about 10 women, had tackled 3-metre (10-foot) high waves and spent two nights on the open boat during the 500-km (313-mile), week long trip from Denmark.

The voyage is a practise run before sailing to Ireland next year in the boat powered by up to 60 ores and just one square sail, unrolled only when the wind blows from behind the vessel.