Gislinge viking boat replica available as a DIY kit

The Gislinge boat's sleek stems are an iconic feature of Viking boatbuilding

The interior of the Gislinge boat replica

Gislinge Viking Boat Replica

Product Description

A modern stitch-and-glue replica of the Gislinge boat, a handsome shallow-draught boat used for fishing and transport and built to the same standard as the larger Viking longships of the time. Long and streamlined, equipped with a square sail and three pairs of oars, she is a fast and exciting sailing machine that can carry a significant load while navigating shallow waters.

The original boat was discovered in 1993 near Gislinge (GISS-ling-ah), a village on the reclaimed Lammefjord in Denmark. The mast and rig were not found, but the hull was surprisingly well preserved and was dated to around 1130, in the late Viking Age or early Middle Ages. Heavy wear and tear and repeated repair patches to the hull show that this was an everyday working boat, likely used for fishing and transporting people and goods. After about fifty years of hard use, it seems to have been abandoned rather than sunk.

The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde built a series of reconstructions of the Gislinge boat and, in 2015, they released their working drawings under the Gislinge Boat Open Source Project. Chesapeake Light Craft used these drawings to create this stitch-and-glue kit that makes an accessible amateur boatbuilding project. While the museum replicas required many hours of hard work and expert knowledge in traditional Nordic boat building skills, this kit has been designed for anyone to build.

While closely matching the lines of the original hull, the CLC Gislinge Boat uses modern marine plywood and epoxy to make the boat a practical choice for ordinary people to build, use and maintain. The boat looks and feels like a genuine 12th century working craft and is a joy to sail, with the acceleration of a racing dinghy but with surprising stability. This Viking boat can be built quickly and is light enough to tow with an SUV, making it ideal for reenactment groups.

The marine plywood hull is coated in epoxy for durability and easy maintenance. The lower strakes, which may suffer high wear during launching and beaching, are sheathed in fibreglass for additional strength and protection.

There are two notable differences from the authentic reconstructions. One of these is a structural apron around the perimeter of the interior at the level of the thwarts, which supports and conceals the addition of foam buoyancy – an important safety feature on modern boats that will make it much easier to recover from a swamping. The other difference is the replacement of the twelth-century square sail with a nineteenth-century dipping lug. This is a lighter and simpler rig with fewer control lines to manage and better upwind performance, but it looks very similar – few people will notice the difference. It is possible to use an authentic square sail of the kind used in the 12th century, using the same mast and yard. It's a more challenging rig to sail, but some groups may prefer it.

With her long and streamlined hull, a single oarsman can move the boat around easily in calm conditions. Two oarsmen (two pairs of oars) can maintain a fast walking pace and three can row upwind or up rivers to Viking events.

The Gislinge Boat sails like a performance sailing dinghy and is not ideal for beginners. CLC's prototype has managed 7-8 knots on the GPS many times. With no centreboard, she will still sail upwind, but not as well as modern sailing boats. Short-tacking up a narrow channel may be out of the question, but with sail and oars – and careful planning – you can get anywhere you want to go, just as the 12th century Danes did. The sea state, wind speed and skill of the crew are major factors. Ideally, you want a skipper who is familiar with traditional smallcraft but also with high-performance racing dinghies.

She will carry about 3-4 average adults for sailing and 5-6 for rowing (including up to three oarsmen).

As one of CLC's ProKit range, this kit is not recommended for first-time builders. The kit comes with construction drawings, but no instruction manual. The team building the boat should include at least one person who is familiar with stitch-and-glue boat building using epoxy and fibreglass. There are no tricky steps, but there are a lot of parts.

Base kit

The base hull kit includes:

Pre-cut marine plywood panels with pre-cut joints
Milled solid wood components with pre-cut scarf joints
Copper ties
Construction drawings. Please note that there is no construction manual for this kit.
Free technical support from a competent builder

The kit will be packed on a shipping pallet.

To build the Gislinge Boat kit, you will need a dry building space at least 30 × 15 ft (9 × 4.5 m).