Recreating a Viking voyage

Six months ago I set out on the most unusual and the wettest journey of my life.
 
I was on board a replica Viking longship, the world's largest and most authentic, which was attempting to sail from Denmark to Dublin.

The aim of the voyage was to test the ship and gain an insight into how the Vikings would have fared when making the same journey.

One of the first lessons was just how dependent we were on the weather.

With two days of strong winds in the right direction, we had managed to sail over 250 miles (400km) in one stretch.

But once we reached Norway, the situation changed. For 10 days we were stuck on land with the wind blowing in the wrong direction or not at all.

A Viking ship is very poor at tacking (sailing into the wind by zigzagging).
 
Using the oars is possible for short distances but getting all the way to Scotland would take hundreds of hours of continuous rowing.

So the only option was to wait for the wind to change.

At first it was a welcome relief after 48 hours in an open boat in the rain. But boredom soon turned out to be the biggest hazard.