Foto: Toomas Tuul 2010
One of my areas of interest in addition to biology has been Estonian history, especially antiquity. The museum's collection includes quite a few interesting items from that period.
For many years, we organized Viking camps on Vana-Jüri Cape in cooperation with Tartu and Tallinn history clubs. As Käsmu is very much an old seafarers' village, I see it as my duty to develop the focus on maritime history, and therefore began building a Viking ship. A blog documenting this process can be found here (Estonian-language only).
On June 6, 2010, we reached the stage of launching the Viking ship Aimar for the first time, under the direction of master craftsman Anti Kreem. Aare Tani and Aarne Viljasaar were on hand to help. Indrek Jets crafted the figurehead from oak, and Tiit Haagmaa made the red-and-white sail. A Viking fjord boat found in Norway's Gokstad burial mounds was used as our example when designing the vessel. The eight-oar Viking boat Aimar is 9 m long, 2 m wide, has a mast height of 6 m, and a square sail measuring 15 m2. Aimar can seat 12 people.