When the Vikings couldn't rely on sun, moon, stars and instinct to navigate through unfamiliar territory, they released a hungry raven from their longship to lead them to land.
No such 9th century techniques were required on the Liffey mouth yesterday when a flotilla of ships, yachts, skiffs and gigs guided the Sea Stallion from Glendalough into Dublin Port.
Even the wind obliged for the Heimkvama - an old Norse word for "homecoming". A fresh easterly filled the 122sq m sail, propelling the world's largest Viking replica upriver without any need for oars. The crew of the Naval Service patrol ship LE Roisín looked on enviously - engine trouble had prevented the ship from leaving its berth.
Several hardy shore-based onlookers had braved the South Wall, but a cast of thousands lined both quays as the longship continued through the raised East Link bridge. Before that, however, Dublin Port had organised its own surprise - celebratory firehose sprays from port tug Deilginis, and a cacophony of whistles from a number of cargo ships, tugs and pilot boats, including the Dodder, skippered by Pat Dunne and Terry Gray.
Longship captain Carsten Hvid admitted later that it marked the "biggest moment" on his six-week, 1,000 nautical mile voyage. Little did he know that it had taken a son of a Viking - Dublin Port's head of operations Séamus McLoughlin (or "MacLochlann", as he declared proudly) - to pull it off.
As the longship approached Spencer Dock, the Army band from the 4th Western Brigade struck up at Custom House Quay, conducted by Capt Declan Whiston. A bronzed and windswept crew of 65 took down the sail and used their oars to negotiate the berth, to loud applause and cheers and tears and the peal of bells from Christ Church Cathedral.
There was a Naval Service guard of honour, and Lord Mayor of Dublin and Admiral of the Port Cllr Paddy Bourke invited Capt Hvid and crew ashore. Hvid bore a parchment of greetings for Christ Church and the Defence Forces from Roskilde Cathedral in Denmark, which the longship left six weeks ago. Representing the Government was Minister of State for Finance Noel Ahern, while Denmark was represented by its minister of culture, Brian Mikkelsen.
In his speech, Bourke noted that the replica's arrival marked "shared histories", spanning almost 1,000 years. The builders of the original, Skuldelev 2, on which the Sea Stallion is based, had drawn on Scandinavian boat building techniques, and the trees "felled here in the mountains behind our city" in 1042.
A clearly exhausted but elated Hvid recalled that the toughest part of the journey was an unexpected force nine gale in the Irish Sea en route to the Isle of Man. "The forecast had been for force six," he said. The rudder broke, the ship turned broadside into the waves, and Hvid ordered the donning of survival suits and preparation of liferafts.
"Then when we got the sail up, there was no problem at all," he said. Apart from that, his greatest experience was getting 65 people to work together - some 40 of whom did the entire voyage. "We had to live, eat, sleep, even throw up together," he said.
The crew of 11 nationalities, mainly Danish, included two Irish - archaeology postgraduate student Triona Nicholl from Dublin and Diarmuid Murphy, who has sailed Bantry longboats off west Cork.
Much of the data collected on the voyage will now be analysed, according to Tinna Damgard-Sørensen of Roskilde's Viking Ship Museum.
"One thing we can say is that our reconstruction is trustworthy, and the part of the ship that worked best was the part based on the archaeological remains taken in 1962 from Roskilde fjord," she said.
The Danish visitors also called to the National Print Museum in Beggar's Bush yesterday to view an exhibition of 89 copper etchings called Paraphrases of Bayeux, by Danish artist Susanne Thea.
The exhibition runs until the end of the week.
