Aboard the world’s largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times

Bringing the Viking age of exploration to life in today’s age, Draken Harald Hårfagre is the world´s largest Viking ship sailing in modern times. The major sail maneuvers are the main reason why Draken needs a crew of about 34 people.

The Vikings were accomplished navigators, artisans, traders and story tellers, but their greatest triumph was the ships they built.

Norwegian Viking ship, Draken Harald Hårfagre, announced the commencement of the next leg of its North American tour, Expedition America: East Coast Tour 2018, slated to commence in summer of 2018. n 2016, the Draken successfully crossed the North Atlantic Ocean, recreating one of the most epic, mythical explorations of all time in the wake of the Viking Explorer, Leif Ericsson, the Norse explorer from Iceland. Leif Ericsson was the first known European to have discovered continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus.

Draken is a well balanced ship, but sometimes in hard wind and waves, stearing her can be a hard job; in extreme conditions up to three people will assist the “helmsman”

Following the overwhelming response and great show of interest and support from the public, the next leg of the Draken Harald Hårfagre North American tour will consist of 16 stopovers across the U.S. East Coast states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virginia.

“Each Draken stopover offers a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for visitors to relive history in a way never before experienced, said Captain, Björn Ahlander. “We offer guests the opportunity to not only marvel at this stunning Viking ship on guided deck tours – but also to interact with the crew while they share their personal experiences of the thrill, fear, and exhilaration felt from having relived one of the world’s most mythological sea voyages – the first transatlantic crossing and the Viking discovery of the New World, more than a thousand years ago.”

After initially setting sail from Haugesund, Norway the world’s largest Viking Ship sailing in modern times traveled via the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, before its arrival to Newfoundland and subsequently the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes, followed by New York City. The ship then arrived in Mystic Seaport, CT., where she has been docked since the conclusion of Expedition 2016.