Sailing the fjords like the Vikings yields unexpected insights

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“During long -range trips, we worked in watches of four hours and four hours off, and it’s almost long enough to sleep on your watch, but also almost short enough for you not really, really, really cold, which is obviously a risk,” said Jarrett. “It was manageable, but we looked like penguins. I mean, we wear six layers of wool at any time and sleeping all stacked for heat. But other times, it’s really nice. Spring and autumn in Scandinavia, there is much more chances of high pressure cycles, which means that it is clearer and sunny in summer.”

Nevertheless, there were difficult times, as when the Spar mast holding the workforce broke, forcing the crew to improvise and necklace two trains together to hold the sail so that they can continue their trip. It took several days to repair the boat to be able to navigate again. There was no security boat in case the crew is in trouble, and no engine, although it had a lifeline, that the crew has not yet used.

On the basis of his sailing tests, Jarrett believes that the Vikings did not need navigation tools such as cards, a compass or a sextant, based rather on what he calls “mental cards” – or a “maritime cultural landscape” – based on the memories and experiences of sailors and transmitted orally through generations. These cards could also be informed by myths linked to well -known coastal monuments, such as skerries, small islets or reefs.

“People moved by boat along the west coast of Scandinavia for a very, a very long time, very long, probably for the fire the Neolithic, if not earlier – thousands of years before the Viking age,” said Jarrett. “There are large trading networks in place beforehand, and this is reflected in the names, the place names along the west coast. My main argument is that if you spend 3000 years traveling in a coast in which you can use the coast at any time for navigation, then it is not necessary to develop instruments.