Viking Ship Departs Iceland on Atlantic Journey

A replica of an ancient Viking ship set sail from the tiny Icelandic port of Budardalur on Saturday to re-create the Atlantic crossing of the Vikings 1,000 years ago.

The builder and captain of the Islendingur is Gunnar Eggertsson, a direct descendant of Leif Ericson, or Leif the Lucky. According to medieval Icelandic sagas, Ericson reached the New World, which he called Vinland, in 1000 aboard a similar vessel.

“This day is of great significance because it marks the 1,000th anniversary of Iceland’s discovery of new countries,” Transportation Minister Sturla Bodvarsson said.

“It was here that the journey to new lands began,” he told 600 Icelanders who had gathered to see the boat off.

The crowd cheered as the ship left Budardalur, north of Reykjavik, the capital, for the original Viking settlement in Greenland, where it will moor in mid-July.

The 80-ton boat, fashioned from oak and pine, will sail on to Newfoundland, Canada, on July 28, where in the 1960s archeologists uncovered the remains of Viking settlements confirming that Norse sailors were the first Europeans to set foot in North America.

The Islendingur will then proceed down the U.S. East Coast and sail into New York on Oct. 5.