''Íslendingur'' (, "Icelander") is a

replica A replica is an exact (usually 1:1 in scale) copy or remake of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without ...

of the Gokstad

viking ship Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, used in Scandinavia throughout the Middle Ages. The boat-types were quite varied, depending on what the ship was intended for, but they were generally characterized as being slender and flexi ...

and was sailed across the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

in 2000. It is on display at the

Viking World museum Viking World ( ) is a museum in Njarðvík, Reykjanesbær, Iceland. The museum opened on 8 May 2009,Njarðvík Njarðvík () is a town in southwestern Iceland, on the peninsula of Reykjanes. As of 2009, its population was 4,400. History In 1995 it merged with the town of Keflavík and the village of Hafnir to form the new municipality of Reykjanesbær. ...

Reykjanesbær Reykjanesbær () is a municipality on the Southern Peninsula (''Suðurnes'') in Iceland, though the name is also used by locals to refer to the suburban region of Keflavík and Njarðvík which have grown together over the years. The municipality ...

, Iceland. The ship was built in 1996 by Gunnar Marel Eggertsson, a

shipwright Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces i ...

from the

Westman Islands Vestmannaeyjar (, sometimes anglicized as Westman Islands) is a municipality and archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. The largest island, Heimaey, has a population of 4,414, most of whom live in the archipelago's main town, Vestmannaeyj ...

who skippered the Norwegian

Gokstad ship The Gokstad ship is a 9th-century Viking ship found in a burial mound at Gokstad in Sandar, Norway, Sandar, Sandefjord, Vestfold, Norway. It is displayed at the Viking Ship Museum (Oslo), Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. It is the largest pr ...

copy ''

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (S ...

'' on her voyage to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

in 1991.Voyage of the ''Islendingur''
Press Release, Government of

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the populatio ...

, 27 April 2000. ''Íslendingur'' measures 22.5 metres in length, 5.3 metres in breadth, has a draught of 1.7 metres and measuress 80 gross tons. She was built of 18 tonnes of Norwegian and Swedish oak and required 5,000 nails. Her sail was made in Denmark. Her crew complement is 9; the Gokstad ship carried 70. Her average speed is 7

knot A knot is an intentional complication in Rope, cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including List of hitch knots, hitches, List of bend knots, bends, List of loop knots, loop knots, ...

s, top speed 18 knots.Víkingaskipið Íslendingur
NAT Norðurferðir Skipið
Víkingaheimar (

Viking World museum Viking World ( ) is a museum in Njarðvík, Reykjanesbær, Iceland. The museum opened on 8 May 2009,p. 23
The ship was initially used to teach Icelandic children about the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

. In 1998, Marel decided to sail her across the Atlantic as part of the millennial celebration in 2000 of his ancestor

Leif Eriksson Leif Erikson, also known as Leif the Lucky (), was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus. According to the sagas of Ice ...

's voyage to

Vinland Vinland, Vineland, or Winland () was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the V ...

. He founded Íslending hf. to raise money for the venture. The ship set sail from

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

Icelandic National Day Icelandic National Day (, the day of the nation's celebration) is an annual holiday in Iceland which commemorates the foundation of The Republic of Iceland on 17 June 1944. This date also marks the end of Iceland's centuries-old ties with Denma ...

, 17 June, with Marel skippering and a crew of eight including one woman, Ellen Ingvadottir, who kept the

weblog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

of the voyage. Her first port of call was

Búðardalur Búðardalur () is a village situated on the Hvammsfjörður in the north-west of Iceland. The village also lies at the north-eastern end of the Snæfellsnes peninsula and is part of the municipality of Dalabyggð. Búðardalur had about 270 inh ...

in Hvammsfjörður, where she took part in celebrations at

Eiríksstaðir Eiríksstaðir () is the former homestead of Eiríkr Þorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, at Haukadalur (Dalabyggð), Haukadalur Valley in the Dalasýsla region of Iceland. It was likely the birthplace of his son Leif Erikson, Leif Eiríksson, the ...

, where

Erik the Red Erik Thorvaldsson (), known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color o ...

lived and his son Leif was born. Despite a 10-hour ordeal with bad weather off Cape Farewell, she arrived on 15 July at

Brattahlíð Brattahlíð (), often anglicised as Brattahlid, was Erik the Red's estate in the Eastern Settlement Viking colony he established in south-western Greenland toward the end of the 10th century. The present settlement of Qassiarsuk, approximatel ...

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

for the celebration of the viking settlement attended by Queen

Margrethe II of Denmark Margrethe II (; Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid, born 16 April 1940) is a member of the Danish royal family who reigned as Queen of Denmark from 14 January 1972 until Abdication of Margrethe II, her abdication on 14 January 2024. Ha ...

. On 28 July she arrived at

L'Anse aux Meadows L'Anse aux Meadows () is an archaeological site, first excavated in the 1960s, of a Norse colonization of North America, Norse settlement dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. The site is located on the northernmost tip of the island of Newf ...

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

, the single viking settlement to have been discovered on the mainland

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

continentThe claim of a viking settlement at Point Rosee has been rejected after subsequent investigation: Sarah Parcak and Gregory Mumford
"Point Rosee, Codroy Valley, NL (ClBu-07) 2016 Test Excavations under Archaeological Investigation Permit #16.26"
Gerald Penny Associates, 8 November 2017: " he 2015 and 2016 excavationsfound no evidence whatsoever for either a Norse presence or human activity at Point Rosee prior to the historic period. ... None of the team members, including the Norse specialists, deemed this area as having any traces of human activity." and thought to be the site of the Vinland settlement, where she participated in the celebrations with other replica viking ships. From there the ship sailed, via several ports of call in Newfoundland, to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where she arrived on 5 October, approximately 3 months after the start of the voyage. ''Íslendingur'' was laid up in

Westbrook, Connecticut Westbrook is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. The population was 6,769 at the 2020 census. The town center is classified by the U.S. Census Bureau ...

. A deal to use her in advertising fell through because of the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. In 2002 she was purchased by an Icelandic consortium led by the region of

Southern Peninsula Southern Peninsula (, ) is an administrative unit and part of Reykjanesskagi (pronounced ), or Reykjanes Peninsula, a region in southwest Iceland. It was named after Reykjanes, the southwestern tip of Reykjanesskagi. The region has a populati ...

. She was displayed in the open air on the coast in

until she could be moved into the newly constructed

Viking World museum Viking World ( ) is a museum in Njarðvík, Reykjanesbær, Iceland. The museum opened on 8 May 2009,p. 29
She is suspended one and a half metres above the ground so that visitors can walk underneath her hull and observe the workmanship.

References

Sources

"Vikings and Picts: Leif Ericsson Anniversary Celebrations" (2000) * Sonya Procenko, , Newfoundland Flotilla 2000, June 16, 2000.

of

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

interview with Gunnar Eggertsson at L'Anse aux Meadows, aired October 9, 2000

External links

*
Viking Ships
Hurstwic.org, with pictures of ''Íslendingur'' as illustrations {{DEFAULTSORT:Islendingur 1996 ships Museum ships in Iceland Replicas of Viking ships Ships built in Iceland