Who are we?

Norse Heritage Boats is a new venture under establishment in Sicily, Italy. Although this is a new venture, the people involved have decades of passion, knowledge of boats, seamanship, and boat-building experience.

We have several options for suitable sites of different capacity in Sicily for our operations, consisting of workshop, outdoor space  as well as living quarters for staff and customers who want to avail themselves of the possibility of our selfbuilding workshop. We are focusing on the north-west coast of Sicily, where there is an international airport(Palermo), beautiful landscape, great beaches and proximity to many islands for boating excursions. A decision of location will be made no later than august 2025, after assessing customer interest and thus our capacity needs for our premises.

Although we are few now at the beginning of our venture, we have a network of qualified and experienced people who are eager to come and work with us, as soon as building activity is growing. Any apprentices we take on will receive extensive training before they are let loose on boat-building for customers.

I am Norwegian national, having grown up in one of the beautiful fiords on the north-west coast of Norway. I am old enough to have retired from previous activities, but still too young to accept being retired, and stomping at the bit to take on new challenges!

I was also quite young when I learned to sail dinghies at a local sailing school, later "upgraded" to crewing on classic bigger boats like Dragons and the 6-metre class. Since then, I have both crewed on, renovated and owned other faster boats for competition sailing. I have also built wooden boats. 

For the past twelve years I have been living in Italy, have gotten to know its culture and speak its language.

Our partner, the worldwide renown naval architect Francois Vivier has made a name for himself as a designer and constructor of dozens of traditional wooden boat models.

As our mentor, we consult him for any questions we might have regarding design and construction.

For more than 30 years he has, as a naval architect, contributed to the revival of traditional sailing, heritage boatbuilding, to the development of sail and oars boats and home-building. Having built several boats himself and having sailed on many traditional or classics he has always had at heart to draw nice and seaworthy boats.

Helge Kristiansen - Founder, Manager, Builder, Fix-man and Gopher

Francois Vivier - Architecte Naval, Bretagne, France

From a very young age I was very interested in learning about my family's Viking origins, as well as learning woodworking from my parents and other mentors. My family's heritage sparked my interest in the Viking ships, and their construction.  I was only 12 years old when I was brought by my father to study at close range the famous ancient Oseberg and Gokstad ships at the Viking ship museum. I was even allowed to touch them!

After completing his studies in naval architecture and engineering he had a long career in the ship-building industry, before he set out on his own as a naval architect.

Francois is the creator of most of our favoured boat designs, including our signature boat, the Ilur.