Hyperborea - namesgiving show - 3.10.2009 Trencin (Slovakia)

[Lýsandros]

This is a repost from the original thread, so that people dont have to get lost in it to see the fruits of our work, here you go:

WARNING: Picture heavy
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I am sorry for such a long period of silence, but things really started to move and I was too busy to do a proper update. To correct this, I will feed you with the most recent information!

During the last weekend, specifically on friday the 2nd, we have transported the ship to its planned docking area in Trencin. It is a town ~100k citizens large, one of the regional centres of Western Slovakia and our base of operations. The very next day, after tuning all the fine details and well executed preparations, we have carried out the event, which consisted of an opening show, the namesgiving ceremonial and a ride down the river for VIP people, who all helped the ship to its successful completion.

So lets get down to a documented description of what really happened!

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We wanted to do something entertaining and fun for people, so we have moved the scenario a bit to the heroic age and used the notoriously known background of Iason and his Argonauts. Sure, its a good couple of hundreds years into the past, but it is a story that even people in Slovakia seem to recognize, so we have decided to go on with it anyway. We did not go directly for any of their adventures, but we have made up one of our own - The crew of Argo is on the way from Kolchida, victoriously carrying the Golden Fleece, passing trough a barbaric territory. To serve our purposes, we have cast the Argonauts to be the evil side and the local population as the good side, so the Argonauts mercilessly assault a local village to plunder their much needed resources, so that they have enough to continue their journey. Thats where the show begins.



We have hidden the ship some 3 km from the place where the event was supposed to take place and when the time was right, we have rushed into the place head on, ramming the coast. Our mighty crew of, ehm, 2 battleready argonauts - Iason and Theseus, jumped into the water and stormed the beach, handily defeating the weak defenders.





The situation changes when the reinforcements from the nearby village arrive, led by a mighty chieftan Jastrab (Hawk), who rides a battle chariot dragged by 2 horses and manages to fend of Iason.



Since none of the sides is strong enough to make a decisive move, Iason and Jastrab make a deal. There will be a duel of each side's most powerful warriors and the outcome will determine the winner. If the Argonauts win, they will get all the resources they need and all women from the local tribe will be (continues after 10pm ). On the other side, when the local tribe wins, Argonauts will pull back and never return to harass this village.





And so ensues an epic set of duels - in which, the mighyt chieftain Jastrab remains undefeated. The hammer of the pagan gods that he wields grants him strenght and might, which only few can hope to match. Iason stands to his own word and the argonauts pull back. They board the ship and leave to the cheering of the local population.















After the initial show ended, it was time for the namesgiving ceremonial. First there was the historical part - a sacrifice to the gods. Poseidon recieved his share of wine into water, the rest recieved their share into the flames of our sacrificial vessel. We have used animal fur and wine mixed with water, as the old traditions tell us (Thanks to Stefanos who sent us instructions D Those rocks are hard as hell...



The second part was a traditional namesgiving procedure. Our watersports wold champion (and olympic winner) Martina Kohlova sprayed some champaigne onto the ship officially named it Hyperborea, after the Ancient Greek term for countries north of the river Istris, countries of the northern wind.



Afterwards, we have taken the VIP guys on their first trip and after returning, the ship was docked and available to the general public, they could come onboard and explore the ship on their own.

And thats it, friends, hope we will be ramming your ports next summer



Photographic material by: Lucia Kuklisova ( [email protected] ), http://www.trencin.sk , http://www.sme.sk

[Lessa]

Wow, wonderfully pictures, congratulations also for the bireme!!

[Epictetus]

Great pictures!

[Lýsandros]

Most of them were taken by our group's photographer Lucia Kuklisova, she is very talented, indeed