# Draken Harald Hårfagre

Draken Harald Hårfagre (English: Dragon Harald Fairhair) is a large modern designed longship built in the municipality of Haugesund, Norway. It is a ship that combines ocean-crossing sailing capabilities with a medieval warship's use of oars.

## Construction

Building began in March 2010. Construction was funded by Sigurd Aase, described as a "Norwegian oil and gas tycoon."

### An oceangoing Norwegian warship

The longship is a "25-sesse" (25 pairs of oars); in other words, it is equipped with 50 oars. Each oar is powered by two men. Under sail it requires a crew of 30 people.
Draken Harald Hårfagre is 35 metres (115 ft) long with a beam of approximately 8 metres (26 ft) and a displacement of about 95 metric tons. The longship is constructed in oak and carries 260 square metres (2,800 sq ft) of sail.
Draken Harald Hårfagre is the largest long ship built in modern times. In the Viking age, an attack carried out from the ocean would be in the form of a "strandhögg", i.e., highly mobile hit-and-run tactics. By the High Middle Ages the ships changed shape to become larger and heavier with platforms toward the bow and stern. This was done for the sake of sea battles, making it possible to board ships that lay alongside each other. In the 13th century, this tactic was well known and widely used in Scandinavia. The law of the land in those days (Norwegian: Gulatingsloven) included standards that required Norwegian provinces (fylker) to cooperate in supplying 116 such warships of 50 oars size (Norwegian: 25-sesser, i.e., 25 pairs of oars) for duty in the Norwegian fleet of warships.

### Norwegian boatbuilding traditions

Copies of Viking ships are usually based on interpretations of archaeological material, but in the construction of Draken Harald Hårfagre an alternative method was used. It was decided to begin with the living tradition of Norwegian boatbuilding, with roots that can be traced directly to the Viking Age. The foremost Norwegian traditional boat builders are involved in the project. Their knowledge of traditional boatbuilding is supplemented with the results of investigations carried out on archaeological material, source material in Old Norse literature, literature from the same period from foreign sources, iconographic material, etc. The goal of the project is to recreate in this manner an oceangoing warship of 50 oars taken right out of the Norse sagas.

## Criticism

Historians have criticized the usage of the term Viking ship in connection to Draken. Professor Eldar Heide points out that the ship is not constructed based on any finds from the Viking age., but rather descriptions in the Norse Sagas that have been viewed as inaccurate since the 1980s.
Helde points out that the framework was based on the misunderstood representation of Viking Age ships that we find among historians in the 12th–14th centuries. Draken was supposed to be 1. a Viking ship, 2. the longest in the world, and 3. have excellent seaworthiness.
The combination of this does not work. A very long, narrow and low-boarded ship could have been built, based on ship finds from the end of the Viking Age. But such a ship could not sail to America, which was an overarching goal in the Draken project.
Therefore, the ship was made wide and high-boarded in addition, and thus ended up far outside the Viking Age. Actually, it ended up in a parallel universe, because ships like the Draken hardly existed in Snorri's time, either.
The boat builders took the Gokstad ship, from 890 (23.8 m long), and scaled and adjusted it up until it had dimensions that could agree with what Snorri describes.
Draken is not a warship from the Viking Age (small or long, narrow, low-board), and not a cargo ship from the Viking Age (short, wide, high-board). But it is also not a floating fortress from the 13th century, with all the novelty that such ships had. Instead, it is a construction from 2012.
Viking Age ships in the Sagas from the 12th–14th centuries has been known and accepted among researchers since Rikke Malmros published the article "Leding og skjaldekvad" in 1985.
She examined skaldic poems from the Viking Age that had lived in oral tradition until written down in the 13th century. There she saw that the skalds in the Viking Age praised warships for being light and fast – that is, shallow and small or slender. The skaldic stanzas agree with the archaeology, and Draken contradicts both source types.

## Launch and maiden voyage

The launching of the longship took place in the summer of 2012. The initial period was one of exploring how to sail and row the ship, and for experimentation with the rigging along the coast of Norway.
In summer 2014, skippered by Swedish captain Björn Ahlander, the longship made its first real expedition, a three-week passage under sail from Norway to Merseyside, England. There it was hosted by the Liverpool Victoria Rowing Club. It also visited various other locations around the coast of the British Isles, including the Isle of Man, Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland.

## Expedition America 2016

The ship left its home port of Haugesund, Norway on 26 April 2016, bound for Newfoundland, the aim being to explore and retrace the first transatlantic crossing and the Viking discovery of the New World. The route included stops at the Shetland and Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, before landfall on Newfoundland was finally achieved on 1 June that year. Future stops were planned along the Atlantic Canadian and American coast.
The schedule of the voyage was:
* 24 April – Haugesund, Norway
* 3 May – Reykjavik, Iceland
* 16 May – Quqortoq, Greenland
* 1 June – St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador*
* 15 June – Quebec City, Quebec*
* 1–3 July – Toronto, Ontario*
* 8 July – Fairport Harbor, Ohio, U.S.*
* 14 July – Bay City, Michigan, U.S.*
* 22 July – Beaver Island. Michigan, U.S.
* 27 July – Chicago, Illinois, U.S.*
* 5 Aug – Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S.*
* 18 Aug – Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.*
* Sept. (TBD) – Oswego, New York Canals, New York, U.S.*
* 1 Sep – Ilion, New York, U.S.
* 3 Sep – Little Falls, New York, U.S.
* 15 Sep – New York City, U.S.*
* Oct. (TBD) – Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, U.S.*
(*Approximate dates)
In mid-July 2016 doubts were raised about the ship's ability to visit United States destinations in the Great Lakes. The United States Coast Guard deemed it a commercial vessel, requiring a pilot per a 1960 law. The total cost of piloting was estimated at $400,000. Sons of Norway raised over $60,000 to help pay the pilot fees. On 4 August 2016 Viking Kings issued a press release declaring that Green Bay would be the ship's last stop in the Great Lakes, planning to make its next stop in New York in September.

## Awards

The crew of Draken Harald Hårfagre were awarded the Leif Erikson Award by The Exploration Museum at the 2016 Explorers Festival in Húsavík, Iceland. Norwegian ambassador Cecilie Landsverk accepted the award on behalf of the crew from Iceland's President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, followed by a video message from the captain.