| Ships and the
vikings |
For over 250 years, between about 800 and 1070, the
wonderful longships of Scandinavia carried Viking warriors and traders
to every country in northwest Europe, into the Mediterranean, down
the great rivers of Russia to the Black Sea, and west across the Atlantic
Ocean to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and, briefly, to the
northern shore of the American continent.
Longships preserved in Viking graves have revealed what magnificent
sea boats they were, with tough but flexible overlapping planking
able to take the pounding of heavy seas, yet slim and shallow in draft
for venturing far up creeks and rivers under oars.
The Viking ship found at Gokstad has places for 16 oars a side. As
there are no benched, the men must have rowed sitting on their sea
chests. the word "starboard" ( from "steering board")
comes from the position of the single steering oar on the right-hand
stern of the ship. Like all Viking ships, the Gokstad ship was "clinker-build",
of over-lapping planks, 16 a side. It measures 23 meters (76.5 feet)
long.
Not all Viking ships were warships. For voyages of trade and settlement
the foremost ship was the broad-beamed knorr, designed to carry trade
goods and livestock. Distant viking colonies such as Greenland depended
heavily on the regular sailing of knorrs from Scandinavia, bringing
vital supplies in exchange from furs and walrus ivory. Knorrs could
be decked in the harbor, or loaded and unloaded on an open beach. |
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 Ship
of the Goksted type with mast and sail lowered. Swiveling shutters
closed the oar ports when the ship was under sail. |
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| A hinged and
decorated weathervane of gilded bronze for showing the wind direction. |
Some of the
rich finds unearthed from a Viking ship burial included these items
of ship's gear: buckets, pans kitchen utensils, and a light axe. |
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| Viking boats
had the same double-ended lines and clinker build as ocean-going longships. |
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| Viking merchant,
with scales for weighing payments in silver and gold-often pieces
of cut-up coins. |
A trading
knorr, with a cargo of trade goods and livestock. |
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| The Vikings
as no magnetic compass but used a sundial (reconstructed from a wooden
fragment found in Greenland) for getting their bearings on long sea
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Danish silver
coin shows a Viking ship with shields displayed. |
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| The
ocean routes sailed by Viking warriors and traders "island-hopped"
west across the Atlantic, from the British Isles to the Faroes, Iceland
and Greenland. From the colonies on Greenland it was a shorter voyage
to North America which the Vikings called "Vinland". |
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The lines of
the hull, lowest in the midships section, made it simple to heel the
ship on its side for the quick and easy landing of people and animals
onto a beach.
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The
shallow draft of Viking ships, whether ships of war or peaceful trade,
was ideal for getting close inshore on open beaches. |
