A U.S. woman in her 20s is reportedly dead after the replica Viking ship she was on sank off Norway’s west coast on Tuesday evening.
The five other people on board the ship managed to make it onto a life raft and were winched up into a helicopter.
The small, 10-metre open Viking ship had attempted to cross from the Faroe Islands to Alesund in Norway — a distance of about 680 kilometres — when it began taking on water and capsized. The passengers on board were attempting a voyage similar to one the Vikings would have done more than 1,000 years ago, AFP reports.
The ship sent out a distress signal early Tuesday evening but after a helicopter arrived at the boat’s location it was deemed to be a false alarm, rescue services told Norwegian news outlet VG. An hour later, another mayday signal was sent and a full-scale rescue operation was launched. The reason for the earlier false alarm was not disclosed.
Two helicopters and a lifeboat were sent to the ship’s location, about 100 kilometres off the shore of Norway’s west coast. The Norwegian Coast Guard also sent a ship.
Five people, hailing from Switzerland and the Faroe Islands, were rescued from a lifeboat on Tuesday evening. The sixth person, an American woman in her 20s, was deemed missing, Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende reports.
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Her body was eventually found Wednesday morning a few hundred metres away from the shipwreck. Her identity has not been released by police.
Norway’s Sea Rescue Society (NSSR) said it battled high waves and strong winds throughout the rescue mission.
“The weather conditions are very demanding, with winds up to 40 knots and waves of 5 metres,” the society wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The five people who survived the shipwreck — three men and one woman from Switzerland and one man from the Faroe Islands — were airlifted to Florø and are being cared for by crisis teams. None were injured but they suffered psychological damage in the ordeal, a doctor told Bergens Tidende.
A rescue worker from the Faroe Islands told VG that the boat launched on Saturday after being postponed due to bad weather. The trip was expected to take about three to five days.
The boat they were on was built according to Faroese tradition. It was a dual-masted, open sailing boat powered only by sails and oars. There was no motor on board. The ship was named Naddoddur, after the Viking navigator Naddodd, who is believed to have discovered Iceland in the eighth century.
The woman’s body was discovered by the Norwegian Coast Guard and her relatives have been notified of her death. An autopsy will be conducted to assist in the police investigation into the incident.
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