It’s the big weighing day. All members of the crew have been ordered on to the bathroom scales with all their luggage. They are also getting their waists measured.
There are two reasons for such thoroughness. The weighing is needed to get a picture of the ship’s total displacement to find out how it should be trimmed during the voyage. But the Viking Ship Museum also wants to document how much weight the crew as a whole and as individuals lose or gain in the course of the trip.
The Vikings attacked Ireland for the first time in 795, when written sources tell us that “Rathlin was burned down by heathens”. But which of the islands outside Dublin the Vikings attacked first is much debated among archaeologists, historians and local enthusiasts. Both Lambay Island and the small rocky island called Ireland’s Eye, which we went round on the way to Howth, have been named as “the place where the Vikings went ashore”. And with that in mind, two of the aftship’s crew decided they would reconquer Ireland’s Eye.
They set course for the island in the support vessel’s rubber dinghy with flag, food, sleeping bags and tarpaulin. The island was renamed St. Andreas and the surrounding waters the Hanseatic straits after the two proud conquerors that took the former Viking area. Who knows, perhaps the conquest of will continue along the south coast of England.
We may be leaving Howth tomorrow, Thursday. There will be a slight westerly wind, so we can get a bit down the coast, closer to Lands End and the English Channel. Even if it’s just 25 nautical miles, it’s better than more days as a landlubber in Howth. Despite the beautiful surroundings and the town’s interested and hospitable inhabitants, we long to sail and be on board the Sea Stallion.