History Retold
HISTORY 3 x 60'
HISTORY
timewatch: viking voyage
On July 1st 2007, 65 men and women set off on an extraordinary voyage. Their goal: to sail the world’s largest reconstructed Viking ship from Denmark to Ireland. Their ship, the Sea Stallion of Glendalough, is a meticulous reconstruction taking over 40 years, of a 30m longship discovered under the sea.
Duration
1 x 60'
Production Company
BBC
YOP
2008
Definitions
SD
Episode Information
On 1st July 2007, for the first time in 900 years, a Viking Warship set sail from Denmark on a unique voyage of discovery to Britain and Ireland. The ship was the product of forty years of preservation, research and painstaking construction work by archaeologists, historians and boat builders. Using only Viking tools and technology they were confident they had re-created an exact ocean-going warship which would allow us, for the first time, to understand how the Vikings achieved such vast dominance. Her crew laid their lives on the line to prove that they had got it right. With exclusive access, we are on board to chronicle this extraordinary voyage and to uncover the Lost Secrets of the Viking Ship. After 6 weeks at sea the ships arrival in Dublin Harbour was met by thousands of people giving the 65 men and women aboard a heroes welcome. They’d suffered hypothermia, sea-sickness, exhaustion, broken bones, broken masts, broken rudders, high seas, the threat of shipwrecks. They’d been greeted with amazement wherever they landed, feted by Royalty, and had fully probed the lost secrets of the Viking shipbuilders.