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One summer day in 1993, a local farmer in Gislinge was digging a small pond in his field. He didn’t get far before he hit something hard – the remains of a boat, hidden under about a meter of soil. The wood was old but well-preserved, protected by the damp layer of sand and mud.

The area, which is now dry land, was once part of Lammefjorden, an arm of the Isefjorden, which was drained in the late 1800th century. This explained how a boat could be in the middle of a meadow, far from the present-day coastline.

The find was startling, and archaeologists from Holbæk Museum and the National Museum were called in to investigate the site further. Already at the first inspection it was clear that it was a clinker-built boat, a type of ship known from the Viking Age and the Middle Ages.

The boat lay in a slightly sloping position, with the bow slightly lower than the stern, probably due to the movement of sediments over the centuries. Initial tests showed that the boat's wood consisted mainly of oak, while some of the many repair patches were of beech.

The archaeologists quickly decided that the boat should be excavated and preserved for posterity.