The Viking ship Oseberg began to move, its delicate oak hull enclosed in a protective steel rig and suspended from a ceiling-mounted crane running on an overhead rail. It had to travel about 100 meters in roughly ten hours, CBS News reported. The museum shared a time-lapse video showing the vessel suspended on the rail and encased in the frame for the journey, Jagran reported. “The team moving the vessels got a head start and covered the first 20 meters, and it went perfectly according to plan,” the museum said in a Facebook post.
This marked the first stage of a final relocation, as the Oseberg, Gokstad, and Tune ships were set to move from the old Viking Ship Museum to a newly built addition in Oslo designed to preserve them in optimal conditions.
“There is something deeply moving in thinking that these ships, with their long history and all the voyages made, are going to undertake their last journey,” said Aud Tønnessen, the museum’s director. “They were exposed to humidity, to vibrations. Over time, the pressure became so strong that they began to show signs that they would end up sinking on their supports,” Tønnessen said. The ships had been housed in a cross‑shaped 1926 building considered too small and unsuitable, and officials decided to move them to a climate‑controlled facility built as an extension to the old museum, which should preserve them in good condition for about one hundred years.
The transfer was risky, and the team took extensive precautions to limit vibrations. An oil services company with experience in high‑precision work, including installing large structures 300 meters under the sea, was hired for the move. “We must carry out this operation without further damaging the ships, but we know that every handling is harmful to them,” said David Hauer, the museum’s conservator. “They are clinker-built hulls of 1,200 years of age. At the slightest deformation, they crack between the rivets and the wood splinters,” Hauer said. “The degree of precision required, for example, in terms of vibrations, is the same as for electron microscopes in hospitals, with the difference that, in this case, you have to lift the electron microscope, move it, and put it back so that it can be used again,” Hauer said. “But this is yet another level,” he added.
The Oseberg ship, considered the best‑preserved Viking ship, carries ornate carvings. Tønnessen was excited to see the spiraling serpent’s head rise slowly from the stern. The oak structure moved so slowly that its motion was almost invisible to the human eye.
If all went as planned, the Gokstad ship was scheduled to be relocated next during the autumn. The Gokstad, measuring 75 feet long and 16 feet wide, was the largest of the three, with capacity for 32 rowers. The Tune ship, the most deteriorated of the three and believed to have been a particularly fast warship, is scheduled to be relocated in the summer of 2026 and to arrive at its new location in mid‑2026.
All three Viking ships were believed to have been built between 840 and 910 and were found in separate burial mounds at different sites southwest and southeast of Oslo between 1867 and 1904. Each had its own particularities and was distinct from the others.