Viking Ship To Cross North Atlantic

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 10

Viking Ship To Cross North Atlantic

About 10 men dressed in animal skins along with an indeterminate number of chickens and goats were due to set out in a Norse longship about May 1 from Norway to try to retrace the Vikings’ eleventh century discovery route to Newfoundland. The voyage is commanded by Robert F. Marx, the 33-year-old adventurer who piloted a reproduction of Christopher Columbus’s ship Nina across the Atlantic in 1962.

The major purpose of the trip, Mr Marx said in a recent interview, “is to show that these ships could have been used in coming across the Atlantic.” “A lot of armchair experts —not sailors—believe they could not have done it,” he said.

The ship herself is said to be an exact reproduction of what is known as the Gokstad ship, a 76-foot-long 18-foot-wide, ninth century vessel whose remains were unearthed near Oslo in 1880. Mr Marx said he had engaged six sailors for certain and hopefl to acquire about three more. The departure point is Bergen, Norway. The sailors plan to dress,

eat, live and navigate as did their predecessors nearly 1000 years ago. They plan to wear authentic clothes made of leather and fur—“the furrier the better," Mr Marx said—and eat dried meat and fish, honey, dried fruits and cheese. The live chickens and goats aboard the ship are to be killed and cooked in iron boxes on deck. Norse sailors are believed to have made their voyages before the days of compasses and other navigation instruments. They navigated by the stars, sun and moon, and the Marx expedition will do so, too.

Voyage To Be Photographed “We want to prove that their navigation was good enough so that, they could go where they wanted to go and not just where they happened to end up,” the tall, sandyhaired, mustachioed Mr Marx said.

Only four kinds of modern accoutrements will be carried—cameras, to record the adventure: diving gear, so that the sailors can look for possible Norse shipwrecks in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland; and life rafts and a small emergency radio,

both required by Norwegian authorities. Along the way, Mr Marx said, the expedition will collect information about sea conditions and marine life for the United States Navy Oceanographic Office and the University of Miami in Florida. Ship Built For Movie The ship was built at a cost of $25,000 for the movie "Alfred the Great.” She visited Ireland on a test voyage last summer. Mr Marx said that after he approached Metro-Goldwn-Mayer studios, the company sold him the, ship for $l. He said he was financing the trip. “She rides fantastically,” he said of the ship. “She twists over the waves just like a snake, and under sail she can make 12 knots for hours at a time when the wind is favourable. She’s' really a fast ship.” The longships have been described as the single element most responsible for the 250-year period of conquest and colonisation that established a Viking sphere of influence from North Americaj across Scandinavia and Russia to the Caspian Sea.