'A symbol of friendship': French to build replica of William the Conqueror's ship

On the 27 September 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, set sail in La Mora, the flagship of a massive fleet that would conquer England. Now a historical association on France's Normandy coast is to recreate the ship that launched almost 1,000 years of cross-Channel enmity.

- Kim Willsher

The Bayeux tapestry, the 70-meter-long (230ft) embroidered account of the Norman Conquest, depicts La Mora as a Viking-style longship with a striped red and gold sail flying the papal banner on its mast.

Aboard was William, his most trusted knights, their entourage and horses, and almost 60 oarsmen.

The rest, as they say, is history. The English King Harold was defeated in the Battle of Hastings 17 days later, and the Norman duke became William the Conqueror, King of England.

The €13m (£11.1m) project will see the 34-meter-long La Mora recreated in a former industrial warehouse near the quayside of the port of Honfleur.

Olivier Pagezy, president of the La Mora association, admits the builders do not have much to go on. There are no original plans and few details of the actual ship except those depicted on the tapestry, where it was shown with the gilded statue of a child on its stern and the head of a lion with its tongue sticking out at its prow.

"We [also] have a plan of La Mora's sister ship as well as similar ships that are represented in museums in Denmark and Norway where these kind of craft were originally built," Pagezy told the Guardian. "Our architect is confident we can reproduce the ship as authentically as possible."