The Oselvar is a very old type of boat, and over the past few hundred years, it has been the most commonly used small boat along the Hordaland coast, both for fishing and transport. Developments over the past century have transformed it into a purely recreational boat, and in the summer of 2009, the Oselvar was named Norway's National Boat.
The boatbuilding tradition in Os has remained unbroken for at least the past 250 years, and all the accumulated knowledge related to boatbuilding has thus been preserved. In 2016, the Oselvar and the Oselvar culture were added to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage.