North Sailing — Schooner Opal / Hildur
Location: Hjarðarhóll, Húsavík, 640, Ísland, Húsavík, Iceland
The only three two-masted gaff schooners in Iceland — descended from 19th-century north Icelandic fishing vessels, restored with the knowledge that had been "almost entirely lost" — now sailing whale-watching expeditions in a bay where the knowledge of handling gaff-rigged ships is being revived from near-extinction
In the 1990s, the knowledge of how to handle and maintain a gaff-rigged vessel had been "almost entirely lost" in Iceland. North Sailing decided to reverse that. They restored three 19th-century Icelandic oak fishing boats — Opal, Hildur and Haukur — into the only two-masted gaff schooners in Iceland, and now sail them for whale-watching and cultural expeditions from Húsavík in Skjálfandi Bay. The Opal, built in 1951 in Germany, spent the entire 2024 season sailing East Greenland. These are not replicas: they are the real vessels, restored rather than reproduced, carrying the weight of Icelandic coastal culture in their hulls. Iceland's whale-watch industry began here in 1995 — North Sailing invented it.
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