Gunilla was built in Oskarshamn on the east coast of Sweden in 1939. She was launched as a three masted Bermudan rigged ship, but converted to a motor vessel in 1954. Her figurehead was then given to The Maritime Museum at Oskarshamn.
In the 1990’s she was converted back to sail, rigged as a barque to serve as a school ship. In 1998 I was asked to work with the Swedish wood carver Ingemar Johansson, to carve a new figurehead for the ship. Working from drawings and photographs taken of the original, the new replica figure was created together with the trailboards.
The following images show progress in making the figure. The sixth image shows the figurehead after five years at sea.
