Viking Longship

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31967, 19 April 1969, Page 5

Viking Longship

f Contributed hy the Canterbury Museum;

The ninth and tenth centuries are often referred to as the Viking Age. The term Viking was applied to the ancestors of the modem Danes, Swedes or Norwegians. To the English and the other Germanic peoples who suffered, it meant a and to the Northmen themselves a man who went overseas for profit or adventure. Living near the sea. the | Northmen had long used : ships for fishing and trading, so that by the time their voyages of exploration and/or plunder occurred they had developed two types of ship which, except for some increase in size and improvement in hull design, they were to use throughout the Viking Age. These were the warlike longship and the more tubby and capacious Knarr. Both were clinker I built, open boats propelled I by a squaresail and oars. A model of the longship may •be seen among the ship models at the Canterbury Museum. The longship. made for speed, had less freeboard and a narrower hull, and was not intended or used for long oeean voyages. The practice of burial in ships, under a • mound, has preserved several examples, and from these it has been possible to reconstruct the basic design. Thirty-Two Oars One of the most famous of the burial ships is the Gokstad ship, discovered in 1880 near Oslo. Though this was built about 900 A.D., a century after the Viking Age began, it is probably not much different from those used at the outset. About 80 feet long, it has a sharply pointed prow and stern and broadens amidships to a little over 16 feet. On each side were 16 oars, about 16 feet in length, worked through holes in th* atrake* which could b* [

closed with shutters when not in use. The one mast was stepped in a great wooden block fixed to the keel amidships, so that it could be lowered by letting out the, forestay but was firm against' the forward pressure of wind in the sail. It is unlikely that oars and sail were used together unless great speed was necessary: but the square sail could only serve when the wind was favourable, and oars had to do the work when there was an adverse wind or none at ail. Steering was by the paddle or “steerboard" fixed at the stern on the starboard side, controlled by a tiller. Hani Life At Sea The displacement was some 30 tons, but it would have, carried a crew of about 40. | and perhaps 20 or 30 more men at need. Lockers at the prow and stern held weapons, food and water, but all else was open to the sky. Only in harbour, when a long canvas awning could be rigged over the body of the ship, was | there any cover for the crew apart from their sleeping bags of skin or leather. On a voyage of any length life must have been at the best uncomfortable and at the worst sheer misery: yet a replica of this longship was sailed across the Atlantic by a Norwegian crew in 1892. and did the journey in four weeks with a speed at times of over 10 knots. Cramped Quarters Three smalt dinghies, two! with masts, were found in the Gokstad barrow. and also fiye bunks which could be dismantled. With these on board, and the fixed benches for the rowers, there can have been little room for loot, for the crew had to have somewhere to sleep. Sometimes the planking which ; covered the bilges was removed in places to give extra; stowage. Shields. whichl would have been awkward objects to stack, were got put of the way by hanging them over the gunwales. Th* iightnes* and ahallow

draught of these vessels was a great advantage: they could penetrate far up rivers, and be beached on almost any shore. If necessary they could be hauled considerable distances overland.

As time went on sue tended to increase, till it reached its maximum in Olaf Tryggvason's Long Serpent at the end of the tenth century, reported as 180 feet long with 34 oars a side. So also did the splendour of the decoration. The dragon head which ornamented the prow, and sometimes also the stern, was brightly painted or gilded, the shields in contrasting colours and the sail was richly dyed. Such vessels became the dearest pride of their owners, but a signal of doom to neighbouring coastal dwellers. —J.HJ.