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Comment by fbonetti | Hacker News Reader

This is really cool. That voyage must be pretty brutal compared to modern sailing vessels - if you look at this video [1], the galley is basically a sink with a tarp over it :). I wonder if the ship has an inboard engine or a GPS for safety reasons. I imagine that turning this thing around in a crew overboard scenario would be pretty much impossible with a square-rigged sail and no engine.

[1] http://www.drakenexpeditionamerica.com/2016/06/07/cooking-on...

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For what it is worth, there is a support ship. http://www.drakenexpeditionamerica.com/2016/06/16/the-beauty...:

"Along this voyage we have the opportunity to have a media team documenting the adventure. There is one photographer on the ship and 2 photographers and producers on our support vessel. That allows us to have stunning pictures of our beautiful ship and of the crew trying to tame the Dragon in the seas."

They also seem to carry modern life vests all the time. That, at least, gives them some chance of survival in case of a man overboard situation. In Viking times in those waters, I guess going overboard was a death sentence, even if you could swim.

It does look like it has some modern equipment, probably for the reasons you mention. In this picture you can see a wheel, some throttle controls, and some screens which I'm guessing are for GPS and/or sonar. It's still an amazing feat, much respect.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3888/14916240637_e3f3afb9c7_b....

It would be interesting to see how much of the structure is modern as well. It isn't unusual to see fiberglass and other modern materials on replica ships like this.

None of it, according to TFA.

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