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Viking ship built of ice-cream sticks to set sail
Obviously some people (such as myself) have too much free time on their hands.AMSTERDAM - A replica Viking ship made of 15 million ice-cream sticks is to be launched in Amsterdam on Tuesday by a former Hollywood stuntman who hopes eventually to sail it across the Atlantic. The Viking longship, which is 15 meters (about 49 feet) long and took Robert McDonald and two volunteers two years to build, is to be launched in Amsterdam harbor with a crew of around 25 for what is intended to be a 90-minute excursion in a bid to set a world record for the largest sailing ship made of ice-cream sticks. âItâs a dream come true. Itâs truly worth all the hard work,â McDonald said Monday of the painstaking two-year effort to assemble the birchwood sticks into a vessel. âI never want to look at glue again. I donât think I will be in a hurry to look at ice cream sticks again.â The ice cream sticks used to make the ship were provided by Unileverâs ice cream maker OLA and by children who collected discarded sticks around the world. McDonald is a 45-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla. whose Sea Heart Foundation helps provide leisure activities for children in hospitals, hopes to sail his Viking ship across the Atlantic next year. âThatâs still the ultimate goal, to sail across the Atlantic in the Viking-style,â McDonald said. Christopher Columbus was acclaimed for centuries as the man who discovered America in 1492. But in recent decades, more evidence has come to light showing that Icelander Leif Ericsson and the Vikings were the first Europeans to set foot on the American continent around the year 1,000. Viking longboats let Norse warriors land, pillage and plunder large parts of Europe and sail off knowing that no other vessels could catch up. Posted by: anonymous5089 2005-08-16 |
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