What would you think about building a ship ?
No, not one of those little ones that you put in a bottle, or a miniature or small sailing boat. How about a ten-meter ship. Impossible, you say ? But just imagine that you are so fascinated by a particular ship that you would like to copy it... Still no way ? Well, there is a man who has done exactly that, a man named Henri Houben, and the ship he built was a Viking ship. So, as the Norwegian headline says, |
In 1975, Henri and his family were on vacation in Norway.
In the Vikingshipmuseum in Oslo, Henri saw the Norwegian Oseberg ship, a Viking ship dating from c. 900 AD that had been discovered and excavated in 1904. He was so impressed with the beautifull lines of this ship that he vowed that someday he would build a replica. This resulted in his first Viking ship, the five-meter Roskilde-ship. But the memory of the Oseberg wouldn’t let go. So, helped by his photographic memory, Henri developed preliminary sketches. The drawings he made later on provided the basis for estimates, and then Henri started to build. |