VISTAVISTA — Some carpentry buffs spend their retirement years building birdhouses, furniture or jewelry boxes. Tom Kottmeier had bigger plans. The 76-year-old San Marcos resident has spent much of ...

For decades, Thomas Kottmeier has been driven by one obsession: to build a wooden replica Viking ship. He thought about it, studied, practiced, talked about it with his family at dinners, and found ...

ROSKILDE, Denmark — For thousands of years, wooden sailboats allowed the peoples of Northern Europe to spread trade, influence and sometimes war across seas and continents. In December, the UN’s ...

DULUTH — A group of local volunteers has been working hard to construct their version of a Viking boat, circa A.D. 1045. And they aim to sail the vessel to the Two Harbors tall ship festival in early ...