Mystic — Shipwrights with Mystic Seaport Museum were applying an epoxy paint to the bronze spike fasteners on the hull of the replica Viking ship Draken Harald Harfagre on Thursday at Seaport's Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard.

The Draken is a clinker-built Viking longship, a reconstruction of what the Norse sagas refer to as a "great ship." In April 2016, the vessel left its home port, Haugesund in Norway, to begin an expedition to America. The aim was to explore and relive one of the most historic sea voyages: the first transatlantic crossing and the Viking discovery of the New World more than 1,000 years ago.

The ship crossed the Atlantic, sailed throughout the Great Lakes and ventured through the Erie Canal and Hudson River to New York City before coming to Mystic. The Draken had another summer voyage along the eastern U.S. in the summer of 2018, and has been in storage in Mystic since. This is the first maintenance since 2018.

Meanwhile, John Edgington, owner and captain of the schooner Mystic Whaler, was doing some work on his vessel the the shipyard. Mystic Whaler spent the summer at the Seaport instead of plying the waters of Long Island Sound. This is the first time the Whaler has been hauled out for hull maintenance in the state of Connecticut, Edgington said. It's usually hauled out at a Rhode Island shipyard more familiar with work on the vessel's steel hull construction.

"I did like the trip to get to the yard this year," Edgington joked.