The Bátar collective is building longships in Toulouse.

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Bátar

  • For ten years, a group of friends from Toulouse has been building longships, the ships of the Vikings.

  • After the completion of two first boats and expeditions to northern countries, the Bátar collective decided to build a 28-meter long drakkar.

  • This boat, which will be the fastest drakkar in the world, will be manufactured from this summer in a shipyard in Toulouse, before its launch in 2023 and an expedition to New York in 2024.

Floki had better watch out.

Ragnar Lodbrok's shipbuilder in the “Vikings” series has found his alter egos in Toulouse.

For ten years, a group of friends have embarked on an adventure with Scandinavian accents.

Engineers or even computer scientists by training, they decided to build the boats that made the reputation of the men of the North, known to be explorers.

Old plans, modern materials

Reunited within the Bátar collective - boat in Icelandic - they have already proven their worth by building and launching in 2016 their first Viking boat, 6 meters long, then, three years later, by switching to the version 12 meters long using Danish plans of Roskilde's Viking ships.

With these two boats, they set off to attack Norway and the land of Rollo.

This year, they decided to take up a new challenge: to build a 28-meter long drakkar and, in 2024, to reach New York with it.

“To achieve this, we are going to use glulam from pine and chestnut, materials that are lighter and allow you to go faster.

These are modern techniques, but it is considered that if the Vikings had built it they would have done it with these materials.

Contrary to popular belief, they were far from being barbarians: they were good at building, they were for parity, allowed women to fight ”, describes Arnaud Huvelin, alias Bjorn, one of the members of the collective which is part of of an international association of Viking ships.

Shipyard in Toulouse

From this summer, the adventurers will take out their wood chisels, gouges and other mallets to get down to the realization of the hull in a shipyard located in the heart of Toulouse.

"This boat called Orkan can be built by anyone, anyone who wants to participate can register on our site", continues Arnaud who also calls for funding.

Because this new drakkar and the crossing project will cost nearly 2.5 million euros over the next three years.

While waiting to give the first plan, the team is refining the details of its somewhat crazy project, which, thanks to the materials chosen and "pirate engineering", will be able to reach at least 18 knots.

This will make this Toulouse longship the fastest version in the world.

It should be ready in 2023, for training sessions that will lead the pirates of the Pink City to Bordeaux, via the Canal des deux mers.

Until the big departure, in the spring of 2024, for a 45-day expedition.

Eight countries will be crossed, as far as America, as the Vikings did, 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

“There will be fifteen fixed crew members and fifteen rotating crew members, the drakkar will be followed by a boat.

We will spend a maximum of six days at sea between each stopover, ”explains Bjorn.

Enough to relive the sensations of the Icelandic couple of adventurers Thorfinn and Gudrir, who in 1014 gave birth to Snorri in Vinland, the current cove of the Meadows on the island of Newfoundland in Canada.

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