Viking ship visits island harbour

The crew hope to learn more about early norsemen's seafaring skills

The biggest replica Viking vessel ever built has dropped anchor at Peel.

The Sea Stallion is sailing to Ireland from Denmark in a 1,000-mile (1,609km) seven-week voyage to better understand seamanship of the early Norsemen.

On arrival at Peel Harbour the crew of the 30m (100ft) long ship were treated to a visit to the House of Manannan.

There they met members of the crew of the Odin's Raven, the replica longship which undertook a similar journey sailing from Norway to Peel.

Three hundred oak trees, 7,000 iron nails, a sail of 112sqm and 2,000m of rope were needed to build the Sea Stallion.

Irish heritage

She is a reconstruction of a warship found in Roskilde Fjord in Denmark at Skuldelev in 1957.

In 1962, archaeologists excavated no fewer than five Viking Age ships at the site.

The largest of these, codenamed Skuldelev 2 by the excavators, proved to be an ocean-going longship built in Dublin in 1042 using traditional Scandinavian ship-building methods.

A project to reconstruct her was launched in Denmark in 2004 with Her Majesty Queen Margrethe christening her "Havhingsten fra Glendalough" (The Sea Stallion from Glendalough) in recognition of the original's Irish beginnings.

The ship is expected to reach Dublin next week.