kraka fyr

we spent our saturday at the viking ship museum in roskilde. husband joined a "laug" last year on the replica vessel, kraka fyr. it's basically a club whereby you pay 200DKK (that's $42 these days with the dollar so low) and for a whole year, you're a member of the museum and get yourself and a friend in for free. but, even better, on wednesdays all summer long, you can go sailing like the vikings sailed, in a vessel with a square sail out on the roskilde fjord.

part of the deal tho', is using some of your time on maintenance of the vessel. so, that's what we did yesterday. "our" vessel is called kraka fyr.

here's husband painting on a toxic tar mixture which protects the wood from the salty sea water. you can see the difference between the bits that were already painted and those that needed it.

i worked on these oars. they also received the tar treatment. and then it rained on them, making them look rather pretty with droplets of water on them.

husband rolling linseed oil onto the benches. luckily they don't have to have tar, otherwise it would be all over your clothes.

here we are working on the various pieces of the inside of kraka.

it's an interesting and international group who belong to club kraka. there is a german guy who works for the museum who sort of heads the group, a woman from the netherlands who is posted in copenhagen with her job and american me. additionally, half a dozen other danes were there. it was really a fun day--we worked hard, tarring everything, including the ropes!! and the weather wasn't really on our side. at one point, after getting thoroughly soaked by a shower, sabin and i went into the museum to warm up. inside, they have beautifully displayed 5 viking ships which were recovered from the roskilde fjord in the early 60s.

anton, the guy who works for the museum, had to go into the boat-building workshop to repair one of kraka's benches and sabin and i tagged along and watched him make new wooden pegs for holding the bench in position. i asked what kind of education people need to work there...there are archaeologists, conservationists and boat-builders. what a fascinating place to spend a saturday! next weekend, kraka will be put in the water and filled with her ballast rocks and her mast will be mounted and all of the final preparations will be made to make her ready for the sailing season.