Gokstad Ship

(Johann Wolkersdorfer JW 15)

Service: Discovered in burial mound in 1880, the remains were transferred to the Viking Ship Museum in Bygdoy, near Oslo. She is a clinker-built boat intended for open ocean sailing with 16 strakes and 32 oar holes, with room for two shields between each oar hole. In 1893 a nearly exact replica was constructed and named Viking. She sailed from Bergen to New York in six weeks with a crew of twelve, and then continued via the Erie Canal and Great Lakes to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where she still remains.