Viking drakar model made of wood parts templates. Was there a hold in a Viking longship? Dimensions and covering

The ship drakkar became a kind of calling card of the Viking era. It was a long, roomy, shallow-draft, universal-class ship propelled by sail and oars. The word "drakkar" is of Norwegian origin and etymologically goes back to the Old Norse language, where "drage" literally meant "dragon" and the word "kar" can be translated as "ship". In Old Norse and a number of Germanic languages, the Viking longship is also called "langskip", which means "long ship". In European languages, there is a wide range of names for ships of this type - from “dreka” to “draka”.

Structurally, the Viking drakkar is a developed version of the snekkar (from the Old Norse “snekkar”, where “snekja” means “snake” and “kar”, respectively, “ship”). The snekkar was smaller and more maneuverable than the longship, and in turn was descended from the knorr (the etymology of the Norwegian word "knörr" is unclear), a small cargo ship that was notable for its low speed (up to 10 knots). However, Eric the Red discovered Greenland not on a longship, but on a knorr.

The dimensions of the drakkar are variable. The average length of such a ship was from 10 to 19 meters (35 to 60 feet, respectively), although ships of greater length could presumably exist. These were universal ships; they were used not only in military operations. They were often used for trade and transportation of goods; they traveled longer distances (not only on the open sea, but also along rivers). This is one of the main features of longship ships - the shallow draft made it possible to easily maneuver in shallow water.

Drakkars allowed the Scandinavians to discover the British Isles (including Iceland) and reach the shores of Greenland and North America. In particular, the American continent was discovered by the Viking Leif Eriksson, nicknamed “The Happy One.” The exact date of his arrival in Vinland (as Leif called probably modern Newfoundland) is unknown, but it certainly happened before the year 1000. Such an epic journey, crowned with success in every sense, speaks better than any characteristics that the drakkar model was an extremely successful engineering solution.

Drakkar design, its capabilities and symbolism

It is believed that the drakkar (you can see pictures of the reconstruction of the ship below), being a “dragon ship,” invariably had a carved head of the desired mythical creature on its keel. But this is a misconception. The design of the Viking longship actually implies a high keel and an equally high stern with a relatively low side height. However, it was not always the dragon that was placed on the keel; moreover, this element was mobile.

The wooden sculpture of a mythical creature on the keel of the ship indicated, first of all, the status of its owner. The larger and more spectacular the structure, the higher the social position of the ship's captain. At the same time, when the Viking longship sailed to its native shores or the lands of the allies, the “dragon head” was removed from the keel. The Scandinavians believed that in this way they could scare the “good spirits” and bring trouble to their lands. If the captain longed for peace, the place of the head was taken by a shield, turned towards the shore with the inner side on which was printed white cloth (a kind of analogue of the later “white flag” symbol).

The Viking drakkar (photos of reconstructions and archaeological finds are presented below) was equipped with two rows of oars (one row on each side) and a wide sail on a single mast, that is, the main thing was the oar stroke. The drakkar was steered by a traditional steering oar, to which a transverse tiller (special lever) was attached, located on the right side of the high stern. The ship could develop a speed of up to 12 knots, and in an era when an adequate sailing fleet did not yet exist, this figure rightly inspired respect. At the same time, the drakkar was quite maneuverable, which, combined with its shallow draft, allowed it to easily move along fjords, hide in gorges and enter even the shallowest rivers.

Another design feature of such models has already been mentioned - the low side. This engineering move, apparently, had a purely military application, because precisely because of the low side of the drakkar it was difficult to distinguish on the water, especially at dusk and even more so at night. This gave the Vikings the opportunity to get almost close to the shore before the ship was noticed. The dragon's head on the keel had a special function in this regard. It is known that during the landing in Northumbria (Lindisfarne Island, 793), wooden dragons on the keels of Viking longships made a truly indelible impression on the monks of the local monastery. The monks considered this “God’s punishment” and fled in fear. There are not isolated cases when even soldiers in forts left their posts at the sight of “sea monsters.”

Typically, such a ship had from 15 to 30 pairs of oars. However, the ship of Olaf Tryggvason (the famous Norwegian king), launched in 1000 and called the “Great Serpent,” supposedly had as many as three and a half dozen pairs of oars! Moreover, each oar had a length of up to 6 meters. During the journey, the crew of a Viking longship rarely consisted of more than 100 people, in the vast majority of cases - much less. Moreover, each warrior in the team had his own bench, where he rested and under which he stored personal belongings. But during military campaigns, the size of the drakkar allowed it to accommodate up to 150 soldiers without a significant loss in maneuver and speed.

The mast was 10-12 meters high and was removable, that is, if necessary, it could be quickly removed and laid along the side. This was usually done during a raid to increase the ship's mobility. And here the low sides and shallow draft of the ship came into play again. The drakkar could come close to the shore and the warriors very quickly went ashore, deploying positions. That is why the Scandinavian raids were always lightning fast. It is known that there were many models of longships with original accessories. In particular, the famous “Queen Matilda Carpet”, on which the fleet of William I the Conqueror was embroidered, as well as the “Bayenne Linen” depict longships with spectacular shiny tin weathervanes, brightly striped sails and decorated masts.

In the Scandinavian tradition, it is customary to give names to a wide variety of objects (from swords to chain mail), and ships were no exception in this regard. From the sagas we know the following names of ships: “Sea Serpent”, “Lion of the Waves”, “Horse of the Wind”. These epic “nicknames” show the influence of the traditional Scandinavian poetic device - kenning.

Typology and drawings of drakkars, archaeological finds

The classification of Viking ships is quite arbitrary, since, of course, no actual drawings of longships have survived. However, there is quite an extensive archeology, for example - the Gokstad ship (also known as the Gokstad longship). It was found in 1880 in Vestfold, in a mound near Sandefjord. The vessel dates back to the 9th century and presumably this type of Scandinavian vessel was most often used for funeral rites.

The ship from Gokstad is 23 meters long and 5.1 meters wide, with a rowing oar length of 5.5 meters. That is, objectively, the Gokstad ship is quite large, it clearly belonged to a headwing or a jarl, and perhaps even a king. The ship has one mast and a large sail made of several vertical stripes. The drakkar model has elegant outlines, the vessel is entirely made of oak and is equipped with rich ornaments. Today the ship is exhibited at the Viking Ship Museum (Oslo).

It is curious that the longship from Gokstad was reconstructed in 1893 (it was called “Viking”). 12 Norwegians built an exact copy of the Gokstad ship and even sailed across the ocean on it, reaching the shores of the United States and landing in Chicago. As a result, the ship was able to accelerate to 10 knots, which is actually an excellent indicator even for traditional ships of the “era of sailing fleet”.

In 1904, another Viking longship was discovered in the already mentioned Vestfold, near Tønsberg; today it is known as the Oseberg ship and is also exhibited in the Oslo Museum. Based on extensive research, archaeologists have concluded that the Oseberg ship was built in 820 and participated in cargo and military operations until 834, after which the ship was used in funeral rites. The drawing of the drakkar could look like this: 21.6 meters in length, 5.1 meters in width, the height of the mast is unknown (presumably ranging from 6 to 10 meters). The sail area of ​​the Oseberg ship could be up to 90 square meters, the probable speed was at least 10 knots. The bow and stern sections have magnificent carvings of animals. Based on the internal dimensions of the drakkar and its “decoration” (primarily referring to the presence of 15 barrels, which were often used by the Vikings as clothing chests), it is assumed that the ship had at least 30 oarsmen (but larger numbers are quite likely).

The Oseberg ship belongs to the auger class. An auger or simply an auger (the etymology of the word is unknown) is a type of Viking drakkar, which was made only from oak planks and was widely represented among Northern European peoples much later - from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Despite the fact that the ship received critical damage during a funeral rite, and the burial mound itself was plundered in the Middle Ages, archaeologists found on the burnt drakkar the remains of expensive (even now!) silk fabrics, as well as two skeletons (of a young and an elderly woman) with decorations that speak of their exceptional position in society. Also found on the ship was a traditionally shaped wooden cart and, most surprisingly, peacock bones. Another “uniqueness” of this archaeological artifact is that the remains of people on the Oseberg ship were initially associated with the Ynglings (dynasty of Scandinavian leaders), but later DNA analysis revealed that the skeletons belonged to haplogroup U7, which corresponds to people from the Middle East, in particular Iranians.

Another famous Viking longship was discovered in Østfold (Norway), in the village of Rolvsey near Tyn. This discovery was made by the famous 19th century archaeologist Olaf Ryugev. The “sea dragon” found in 1867 was called the Thun ship. The Thun ship dates back to the turn of the 10th century, around 900. Its cladding is made of oak boards laid overlapping. The Tyun ship was poorly preserved, but a comprehensive analysis revealed the dimensions of the drakkar: 22 meters long, 4.25 meters wide, with a keel length of 14 meters, and the number of oars could presumably vary from 12 to 19. The main feature of the Tyun ship is that the design was based on oak frames (ribs) made of straight rather than bent boards.

Drakkar construction technology, sail installation, crew selection

Viking drakkars were built from strong and reliable wood species - oak, ash and pine. Sometimes the drakkar model involved the use of only one breed, more often they were combined. It is curious that Old Scandinavian engineers sought to select tree trunks for their ships that already had natural bends; not only frames, but also keels were made from them. The cutting of wood for the ship was followed by splitting the trunk in half; the operation was repeated several times, with the elements of the trunk always split along the grain. All this was done before the wood dried, so the boards were very flexible; they were additionally moistened with water and bent over an open fire.

The main tool for building a Viking drakkar was an axe; drills and chisels were also used. Interestingly, saws were known to the Scandinavians fromVIIIcenturies, but they were never used for building ships. Moreover, there are legends according to which famous shipbuilders created longships using only an axe.

To sheath the ships of the drakkars (pictures of the drawings are presented below), the so-called clinker laying of boards was used, that is, overlapping laying (overlapping). The fastening of the boards to the hull of the ship and to each other strongly depended on the area where the ship was made and, apparently, local beliefs had a great influence on this process. Most often, the planks in the skin of a Viking drakkar were fastened with wooden nails, less often with iron nails, and sometimes they were tied in a special way. Then the finished structure was tarred and caulked; this technology has not changed for centuries. This method created an “air cushion”, which added stability to the ship, while increasing the speed of movement led to improved buoyancy of the structure.

The sails of the “sea dragons” were made exclusively from sheep wool. It is worth noting that the natural fatty coating on sheep’s wool (“scientifically” it is called lanolin) gave the sailing fabric excellent protection from moisture, and even in heavy rain such a fabric got wet very slowly. It is interesting to note that this technology for making sails for longships is clearly reminiscent of modern linoleum production techniques. The shapes of the sails were universal - either rectangular or square, this ensured controllability and high-quality acceleration in a tailwind.

Icelandic Scandinavian experts calculated that the average sail for a drakkar ship (photos of reconstructions can be seen below) required about 2 tons of wool (the resulting canvas had an area of ​​up to 90 square meters). Taking into account medieval technologies, this is approximately 144 man-months, that is, to create such a sail, 4 people had to work every day for 3 years. It is not surprising that large and high-quality sails were literally worth their weight in gold.

As for the selection of a crew for a Viking drakkar, the captain (most often it was a hersir, chief or jarl, less often - a king) always took with him only the most reliable and trusted people, because the sea, as we know, does not forgive mistakes. Each warrior was “attached” to his oar, the bench next to which literally became home for the Viking during the campaign. He kept his property under a bench or in a special barrel, slept on a bench, covered with a woolen cloak. On long campaigns, whenever possible, Viking longships always stopped near the shore so that the warriors could spend the night on solid ground.

A camp on the shore was also necessary during large-scale military operations, when the ship took two to three times more soldiers than usual, and there was not enough space for everyone. At the same time, the captain of the ship and several of his associates did not normally participate in the rowing, and the helmsman (helmsman) did not touch the oar. And here it’s worth remembering one of the key features of “sea dragons,” which can be considered textbook. The warriors laid their weapons on the deck, while their shields were hung overboard on special mounts. The drakkar with shields on both sides looked very impressive and really struck fear into the hearts of enemies with its very appearance. On the other hand, by the number of shields overboard it was possible to determine in advance the approximate size of the ship's crew.

Modern reconstructions of longships - the experience of centuries

Medieval Scandinavian ships were repeatedly recreated in the 20th century by reconstructors from different countries, and in many cases a specific historical analogue was taken as a basis. For example, the famous longship "Seahorse of Glendalough" is actually a clear replica of the Irish ship "Skuldelev II", which was released in 1042. This ship was wrecked in Denmark near the Rosklilde fjord. The name of the ship is not original; archaeologists named it that way in honor of the town of Skuldelev, near which the remains of 5 ships were found in 1962.

The dimensions of the drakkar “Seahorse from Glendalough” are amazing: it is 30 in length, 300 trunks of first-class oak were used to build this masterpiece, seven thousand nails and six hundred liters of high-quality resin were used in the process of assembling the drakkar model, as well as 2 kilometers of hemp rope.

Another famous reconstruction is called "Harald Fairhair" in honor of the first king of Norway, Harald Fairhair. This ship was built from 2010 to 2015, it is 35 meters long and 8 meters wide, it has 25 pairs of oars, and the sail has an area of ​​300 square meters. The recreated Viking ship can easily accommodate up to 130 people, and on it the reenactors traveled across the ocean to the shores of North America. The unique longship (photo above) regularly travels along the coast of Great Britain; anyone can join the team of 32 people, but only after careful selection and lengthy preparation.

In 1984, a small longship was reconstructed based on the Gokstad ship. It was created by professional shipbuilders at the Petrozavodsk shipyard to participate in the filming of the wonderful film “And Trees Grow on Stones.” In 2009, several Scandinavian ships were created at the Vyborg shipyard, where they are moored to this day, periodically used as original props for historical films.

Thus, the legendary ships of the ancient Scandinavians still excite the imagination of historians, travelers and adventurers. Drakkar embodied the spirit of the Viking Age. These squat, nimble ships quickly and quietly approached the enemy and made it possible to implement the tactics of a quick stunning attack (the notorious blitzkrieg). It was on longships that the Vikings plied the Atlantic; on these ships the legendary northern warriors sailed along the rivers of Europe, reaching all the way to Sicily! The legendary Viking ship is a true triumph of the engineering genius of a distant era.

P.S. Today, the drakkar tattoo is a fairly popular option for “artistic body carving.” In some cases it looks quite impressive, but you need to understand that we do not have a single historical evidence that the Drakkar tattoo could exist. Despite the fact that we know quite a lot about tattoos in Scandinavian culture. Such a significant moment suggests that the Drakkar tattoo is not at all a way to honor the memory of ancestors, but rather a stupid whim.

When you join the ranks of longship builders, you subconsciously try to resemble the images of harsh northerners drawn by your imagination. The Vikings were considered some of Europe's best storytellers, whose sagas continue to fascinate modern readers. One of the distinctive features of Old Norse poetry, legends and sagas is black humor (gallows humor). Usually, when one of the heroes voices such a joke in the Viking sagas, it becomes a bad omen; in such works there are many more such jokes than one might expect. Unfortunately, it is difficult for a modern person to withstand such literary competition, especially within the framework of a short article.
However, this also applies to the ship component, given that in those distant times there were highly qualified craftsmen who could even build an excellently stable and high-speed ship “by eye.” Such a master was accompanied by a whole team of various specialists: woodworkers, board craftsmen, carvers of figured parts and blacksmiths, as well as a number of auxiliary workers. Fortunately, I have to build a boat five dozen times smaller, so the work team is limited to the cat Dashka and the overseas lumberjack Proxxon.
Considering that the review of the construction of the drakkar model from the Italian company Amati is not unique in the modeling community, therefore I will try to be more or less brief and focus not on general plans, but on the little things and nuances.

I'll start with the box and contents. It fully corresponded to what was stated. Only some tornness in the corner of the box lid caused aesthetic dissatisfaction, but the seller's 10 percent discount (“Shipyard on the table”) completely compensated for it. The paper component of the contents is shown in the photo. There are no complaints about the quality of the drawings and instructions, both standard and translated in Russian.

With great difficulty, having overcome the eternal desire of a modeller to assemble the skeleton of a ship as quickly as possible for its speedy 3D visualization, I began to work on the plywood issue, which, in my opinion, is an eternal one for European manufacturers. Starting with gluing the ends of the frame-toptimber-beams (Underline whatever applicable) and keel, continued by double cloning the above underlined elements. I glued linden (in the good sense of the word) 0.5 mm thick veneer on the bends using a soldering iron, depriving myself of smoking breaks while the glue was drying, since the process happened almost instantly. The beams, processed on both sides, have a thickness of 3 mm, which, after some simple calculations, gives a thickness of 15 cm of the natural size, which may not be entirely correct, but is not fatal.

In addition, with the help of a simple engraving device (very light and convenient, by the way) from Proxxon, I created a kind of wood carving on the pre-planned parts of the keel. The word “type” is used to distinguish between real carvings and the primitive, semi-rock paintings done by me. That's when I regretted the missing figure cutters mentioned above. The only thing I can say in my defense is that similar “exquisite cubism” is found on the neck and part of the head of the dragon that adorned the stem of a ship found at the mouth of the Scheldt River.
Having awakened the spirit of a sadistic animalist in myself, I, without a twinge of conscience, sawed off the potential dragon’s strange-looking dog’s tail from the notorious plywood, and, as far as my talents allowed, cut a new, more elegant one from an apple tree (by the way, the material for cutting is simply wonderful), after which I fused it with pins to the “torso”.

Having finished with the preparatory work, I quickly and easily assembled the “skeleton of the ship” from the keel and frames. Malkovka also went through without incident, and I removed the “excess” from all the frames, and not just the three step-like ones indicated in the instructions. Another nuance is the impossibility of processing the sheathing from the outside, because plywood, uncompromising in its lack of alternative, has three multi-colored layers, which, when exposed to a file or sandpaper, festively and joyfully demonstrate themselves to the outside world.

As a result, it was not possible to perfectly align the skins. Either due to a crooked Amati laser, or a similar defect in my hands. True, one thing is slightly inspiring: the body turned out to be surprisingly strong and resistant to deformation, especially after the nailing operation I undertook. Once again I see no point in describing this action, I will only note that the distance between the dowels is 4 mm and the number is uncountable.

It's a joke. Two packages of 600 pieces were quite enough (due to my laziness, I used only the tips sharpened on both sides, leaving the “carcasses” for future turning experiments), the toothpicks turned out to be bamboo and quite difficult to process, so the prepared grinder turned out to be almost useless for external work, but completely I rehabilitated myself when processing the cladding from the inside. In general, in order to save sandpaper and not demonstrate to others your rich stock of indecent words, it is better to use birch dowels.

After nailing with bamboo, it was time to install the deck, or rather its 4 components, as well as the missing beams, with a strange coincidence equal to the number of the missing ones. Having installed all of the above, as well as some additional elements on the stem and stern, I moved on to the next logical operation - deck flooring. To do this, I first had to overcome my innate laziness and decide to cover it not with solid deck boards, but, as it should be, with small floorboards lying on T-shaped beams, which were not secured by anything and, naturally, without any nailing - for accessibility in case any bilge stash of harsh northern men, as well as performing the unattractive, but so necessary work of bailing out dark bilge waters. Two tools were very useful for this work: the aforementioned sander in an unequal battle with bamboo toothpicks and a mini patchwork iron, an ideal thing for welding planks onto PVA glue.

After some thought, I decided to make this vessel not some kind of “windy” (in the sense of exclusively sails), but as powerful as the nature of Scandinavia, that is, rowing against the stormy northern waters. The oars were not inserted into the oarlocks, but passed through special holes - “rowing hatches”. Consequently, the lids for closing them had to be made in the open position; by the way, the lids themselves are nothing more than the remains of the “tiles” from the stern of the Black Pearl, fortunately I cut these round pieces from polished cardboard, coated with bitumen varnish, with a huge supply.
The advent of rowing hatches directed creativity towards the next step: what would actually go into them and be rowed. I won’t say that this part of the work was the most interesting, but 7 types of oars, four of each, were made within a week. To make work easier, each oar consisted of three parts (see photo), one of which was made of plywood, which initially caused internal protest, but after experiments with bitumen coating, the protest disappeared to almost nothing.

The solution to the next logical problem was the question regarding rowing: where, in fact, the rowers sat. No benches for rowers were found during excavations of Viking ships, but the height at which the rowlocks are located in relation to the floorboards excludes the possibility that the oarsmen stood. Some scientists have suggested that they were sitting on their sailor chests, but such chests were not found on the ship because they were the personal property of the sailors, and not part of the ship's equipment.
Arguing with archaeologists is a long and vague matter; it is easier and faster to make the required number of chests, especially since a rowing team sitting right on the deck looks quite comical.
After 28 items of personal property of sailors, it was not difficult to make a few more, this time public property. In the photo you can easily distinguish between self-built and homemade items from Amati “museum quality” items.

The alteration also affected the more complex parts of the ship. For example, “mast fish” or mast fishers, or “old woman”, or curling, I don’t know what else to call this piece of wood. The problem turned out to be that for some reason the manufacturer of the whale decided to make it iron, which did not make me happy at all. Still, the expression - an iron piece of wood sounds somehow strange. I think that in this photo you can see the difference between the product of Italian craftsmen and what I got after two hours of fussing with a piece of the back of a former crib made of unknown wood, and additionally a stopper cover for the mast made of walnut.

I don’t see much point in describing the following operation in detail. Just a small literary digression... Looking at the pictures and drawings, it is easy to see that the rudder of the Viking ships was not located along the center line of the stern, as we are used to, but on the side, on a special mount. And trial modern voyages prove that even with fierce winds and the strongest waves, only one person could easily steer the ship with the help of this side rudder!

After covering the deck with linseed oil and everything else with diluted bitumen varnish, it’s time to place all sorts of “nice little things” - barrels, bags personally sewn from “canvas”, a bucket of water, as well as a bow with a monofilament string and an ax. I fixed almost everything with a glue gun. In principle, I liked it, the only thing is that the cooling speed is very fast, this does not give time for unnecessary thoughts.

History is silent, at least from me, whether the Vikings knew the “fishing bayonet” knot. But it was they who, according to the already established tradition, attached the anchor to the rope (the anchor chain provided for this by the manufacturer somehow does not fit in either with the vessel itself or with the time of its existence).

A separate topic is painting work. Firstly - the shields, secondly - the dragon's head. Both are very vividly described in the Latin text about the Viking fleet that brought Cnut to England in 1015: “So magnificently were these ships decorated that they blinded the beholders, and to those who looked from afar it seemed that they were made of fire, and not of wood. For every time the sun shed the radiance of its rays on them, in one place the weapons shone, in another the hanging shields sparkled. On the bows of the ships gold blazed and silver sparkled. Truly, so great was the splendor of this fleet , that if his master wanted to conquer any nation, then the ships alone would frighten the enemy even before the warriors could enter the battle..."
I think that adding something to select the color palette of the horned head of a representative of an ancient civilization from the constellation Sirius is quite difficult...

The shields, in turn, were painted differently, depending on the taste of the owner. They could be painted entirely with one color, or in segments. Considering that the owner of all this wealth is your humble servant, I left the coloring to my opinion, naturally within the limits of reasonableness and appropriateness, while trying to create some used and aged appearance.

There are many more questions about the white back of the shields. I will not cite here a rather heated scientific debate between respected scientists about the fiction or reality of the existence in Scandinavian myths - the white inside of shields in case of “diplomatic negotiations”, horns on the helmets of warriors, and finally, the red and white stripes of the sail. I’m not even talking about the discussion about the time of origin of the legends themselves, we are talking about a difference of tens of centuries. If you wish, all this can be found on the Internet. Taking into account the certain mythical nature of historicism, I made a strong-willed decision: there should be white shields and a striped sail...at least from an artistic point of view, this is more interesting.
It's time to devote some time to that same sail that was mentioned several times. The whale manufacturer proposes to make a rather strange design - stick 3-4 mm strips of the same material diagonally on a solid panel. Again, I will not cite here the directly opposite opinions of respected people about stones from Gotland with images of ships sailing with an unfurled sail. Where the sails are typically covered with a diamond pattern, while written sources state that the sails are painted with stripes of contrasting colors. Either the Gotlanders preferred other patterns, or, more likely, the diamonds represent a network of ropes or leather straps that covered the surface of a loosely woven sail, strengthening it. Having plunged into a mass of assumptions and hypotheses, I realized one thing: since there are no exact facts, then I will be based on those that are most widespread. In addition, I gleaned the main information for myself from the book “Viking Courts” by Jochen von Firks, so I will continue to rely on the author’s conclusions. This, in particular, applies to a striped sail made of wool. Having decided to give up wool, but not red and white stripes, I spent a long time deciding how to achieve this. Sewing multi-colored stripes, even in 50th scale, is not very good for me, the seams in any case will not be to scale, and achieving evenness, with my rudimentary seamstress skills, is a big problem. After several experiments, I finally found a way out. I drew the required design on the fabric with a red pencil, then painted it with acrylic paint on both sides. After drying, the fabric was subjected to mechanical stress and lying in hot strong tea, but showed very good color fastness. After that, all that remains is to imitate the seams by stitching on a sewing machine along the edges of the drawn stripes.

I don’t see much point in writing about the manufacture of the mast, yardarm, and pins, everything is standard: on a cone. Spirts are a little more complicated; they also have a kind of fork on one edge. Finishing: bitumen varnish and linseed oil.
Rigging work, too, cannot be particularly discussed, in comparison with any single-masted vessel, even with an oblique or straight sail. Here everything is still simpler, and, dare I say it, sometimes even primitive. I wound the threads myself; whale threads traditionally cause only sadness.

The question of the stand had been in the air for a long time and periodically did not let me sleep, and when I installed the steering wheel, I realized that the body could stand on its own, even if it could no longer roll from side to side, it simply became the most relevant. To be honest, several options were made, but only one, the one in the photo, passed the artistic council. I can’t call it a work of art, especially considering that there was only one holder for the ship left (I didn’t want to start a story with an online purchase of another one), but it was necessary to somehow get out of the situation.
With this I say goodbye, I hope to see you soon...

The largest known Viking longship currently bears the name Roskilde 6. Naturally, no one knows the real name of this handsome man. When the slender and beautiful silhouette of Roskilde 6 appeared on the horizon a thousand years ago, it was very bad news for those who saw it. This drakkar carried a company of stern warriors thirsting for blood and booty across the waters of the northern seas.

This is the largest Viking ship ever found. It was discovered in Rocksylda in 1996, quite by accident. Keeping the rules of the Danish language, its name is more correctly pronounced as “Roskilde” (Danish: Roskilde). According to calculations, the construction of such a ship in those distant times took 30 thousand man-hours of skilled labor of shipbuilders, plus the work of felling trees and transporting materials. The ship is just over 36 meters long, four meters longer than Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, built five centuries later. Roxylde 6 is also six meters longer than the Viking ship recreated as the Sea Stallion, which sailed from Scandinavia to Dublin, rounding Scotland, in 2007.

Excavations "Roskilde 6"

The original hulk of the ship is mounted in a metal frame that recreates its shape and full length.
This giant was built after 1025, when the oak trees used for construction were cut down. It could carry 100 warriors, who took turns at 39 pairs of oars if there was not enough wind to fill the square woolen sail. It was quite cramped for them on board; they had to sleep between the seats, and there was very little space for supplies. Therefore, they took a minimum of supplies - fresh water, ale or mead, which did not spoil very quickly, dried fish, as well as salted and dried meat.

The swim was uncomfortable, but usually short. There was no need to take a large load, since the ship was moving surprisingly fast. Thus, the Sea Stallion vessel managed to maintain an average speed of 5.5 knots, and its maximum speed was 20 knots. Once ashore, the Vikings were able to obtain food by hunting and plundering, being ruthless and efficient. All of Europe experienced the wrath of the Normans for more than three hundred years.

Surely the ships did not come one by one. “There is evidence in the records that ships arrived in the hundreds,” says Gareth Williams, a scientist at the British Museum. – Therefore, we can talk about an army of up to 10 thousand people, which suddenly landed on your coast. These were well-trained, strong warriors, capable of moving very quickly both on water and on land.” According to Williams, the construction of such luxury ships was incredibly expensive, but it was a devastating demonstration of the military power of the Normans.

Circumstances of discovery and restoration

The ship was found completely by accident when an extension was being made at the Roskilde ship museum in Denmark (!). The museum itself also houses previously discovered Viking ships, which in ancient times were sunk specifically to narrow the passage in the fjord and protect the approaches to Roskilde, the ancient royal capital of Denmark.
In 1996, archaeologists observing the progress of construction work discovered the skeleton of a huge ship at the site of the new foundation, some of the frames of which had already been broken by piles driven into the base of the extension.

Moreover, the accidental discovery turned out to be a real treasure, consisting of nine (!) Viking ships in total. “Roskilde 6” (I hope the number “6” in the name is now clear), from which almost half of the hull was saved, became the most spectacular discovery.

The original Roskilde ships are spectacularly displayed in a hall specially built for this purpose. The cases look very durable, but they can break like fragile glass. During excavations, the damp frames of Roskilde 6 could crumble into dust if there was access to air. The ship conservation project was led by a specialist from the National Museum, Kristiane Straetkvern. Its essence was to dry 10-meter-long frames much more slowly than was done using previous methods, and then replace the lost moisture with synthetic resin, making the frame lighter but remaining strong.
It was a tense moment for the ship as the assembly and testing of the dried frames began. Each of them was inserted and secured into its carefully laser-cut and well-sized socket. The result is a bolted-on frame that resembles a giant children's construction set. But during transportation it can easily be disassembled into hundreds of parts.

Ship parts in the process of conservation

The final stage of work: assembly of the Roskilde 6 ship on a frame

The preserved, framed wreck of the ship "Roskilde 6" in the exhibition pavilion of the National Museum of Denmark

The team from the Roskilde Museum have grown into a group of experts in the reconstruction of ancient ships and are regularly called upon to carry out restoration work. They hope that one day they will be able to recreate a life-size replica of the huge ship Roskilde 6 and send their creation overseas - not to terrorize the population of Europe, but to leave them in awe of history.

Technical characteristics and design features

It was possible to establish that "Roskilde-6" was a longship, an incredible length - 37 m, with a hull width of 3.5 m, thus, this ship should be classified as a class that gave rise to such giants as the legendary "Long Serpent" and " Big Dragon." Built around 1025, the beautiful boat was almost certainly royal property, and it is difficult to avoid the temptation to attribute it to King Canute, who then reigned in Denmark, Norway, England and southern Sweden.

The keel, oak and T-shaped in cross-section, reaches 32 m in length, consists of a central section and two nodes at the edges, to which it was attached by means of long overlapping joints. The frames, located at a distance of 78 cm from each other, covered the first five planking chords, which turned the upper crossbars connecting them (unfortunately, not preserved) into ideal cans for rowers. Light half-frames, fitted and secured between the frames, added strength to the third and fourth chords. The latter was further strengthened by a stringer, to which the lower beams were connected. Only a fragment of the keelson, resting on the frames and secured with horizontal bends, survived. The sail size of the vessel is estimated at 200 square meters. m. Taking into account also 78 rowers with long oars, the sight of such a leviathan must have taken your breath away. A real ship from the saga, it could easily accommodate 100 warriors, and, without a doubt, additional formidability and belligerence was given to it, as always, by a superbly crafted dragon head (which, however, was not found).
Diagram of the preserved hull of the longship "Roskilde-6"

Reconstructed silhouette of the ship "Roskilde 6" in comparison with the silhouette of a person (in the bow).

There has not yet been a reconstruction of the ship "Roskilde 6", the most similar of the Viking ships found is the "Skuldelev 2" (Danish: Skuldelev 2 - Skullelev 2), which is 6 meters shorter than the "Roskilde 6". Long sea passages speak of the very good qualities of this ship.

Every time the conversation comes up about longships and longships (essentially different names for the same thing, because the Vikings are not a nationality, but, so to speak, their profession is pirates, and they were both Scandinavians and Slavs), someone immediately appears , who claims that it is impossible to make planks by splitting logs, to assemble a ship without iron nails, a NEBRAL PLANE (!), etc. They collected it long before Ancient Rome, and the plane... Of course there was.

In 1967, a very significant discovery was made in the town of Ralsvik on the legendary island of Rügen. During road work, an excavator bucket removed several oak boards connected to each other by wooden dowels. The builder took his find to archaeologists working nearby, and they soon began excavations, during which four ancient Slavic ships and an entire trading settlement were discovered. The settlement existed there since the 8th century and was one of the most important ports on the Baltic Sea in the Middle Ages. It is assumed that it was here, in a bay protected from storms, and not on an unsuitable rocky seashore with numerous shoals, that the Ruyan fleet was located. Ralsvik was destroyed as a result of an enemy, most likely Danish, attack. This is evidenced by traces of fire and a treasure worth 2,203 Arab dirhams; it is assumed that the rooks were also hastily buried by the Ruyans, in order to avoid their destruction by enemies.

This is what Ralsvika Bay looks like now. When a powerful fleet of Ruyans stood here, and now - the scenery for annual performances telling about the famous pirate Störtebeker (about the German pirate and leader of the Vitaliers, or the Vitalian brothers sometime later).

The history of the excavations was not easy. The ships, excavated in the late 60s, had to be buried back in the ground, since no funds were allocated for conservation. They were dug up for the second time in 1980, for display at an international conference. And this time they didn’t come up with anything better than to bury the most valuable finds again. It is unknown how long these strange manipulations would have lasted if the unification of Germany had not occurred. The new state found money for an adequate attitude to historical values, and in 1993 the boats were dug up for the third time, followed by conservation, and after some time a working group was created to reconstruct the best-preserved ship. According to archaeologists, this boat was built around 977 from wood grown in Rügen or Pomerania; the use of wooden nails - dowels - proves that the builders were Slavs (the Scandinavians used metal nails).

In 1999, the archaeological community of Mecklenburg released a small but beautifully illustrated brochure telling about the reconstruction of ancient ships. Two identical boats were reconstructed, one of which can now be seen in Gross Raden. The following is a photo from the book mentioned above.

An unexcavated find. Ralsvik, 1993.

Diagram of the excavated parts.

Reconstructors began work. First, smaller copies of the excavated parts were cut out of cardboard and made up.

Then a drawing for reconstruction was made.

The material for the boat - oak - was delivered to Gross Raden.

Danish specialist Hanus Jensen, who already had experience in reconstructing the Viking ship from Gedesby, was invited to help with the reconstruction.

The reconstruction was carried out quite authentically, using the technologies of those times, using analogues of ancient instruments.

The first step is to split the trunk in two using a wedge.



Tools used for this.

Then split each half of the trunk into “slices”.

And then plan it with an ax to the desired thickness. In the photo for comparison: the original “slice” and the finished board.



Boards are blanks for a rook. Only 3 barrels. It’s hard to even imagine how much work it took to process 11,580 cubic meters of wood for the fortress in this way.

Blanks for the riser - stem.

The finished boards were soaked in water.

Work on the reconstruction of the boat took place right next to the Gross Raden fortress.


Treatment of the riser (stem).

Reconstruction tool kit.

2 variants of risers (two boats were reconstructed)



To give the boards a curved shape, they were heated over coals, moistened with water.

Then they trimmed it with a plane.

For better water resistance, a mixture of sheep and dog wool with human hair soaked in resin was caulked between the boards.

Then the boards themselves were coated with resin.

Manufacturing of wooden dowels.


The boat is in the process of reconstruction.

1. Celebratory launching of the boat in Gross Raden. The ship was named "BIALY KON".
2. Anchor.
3. Transfer of ballast stone by the reconstructors of the Viking boat from Roskilde.

During one of the reconstructions, a journey was made along the widespread medieval route from Ralsvik am Rügen to Wolin, with stops in former trade centers.


To Volin-Vineta!

The other rook is still in Gross Raden. It is carefully hidden at the address: Arch?ologisches Freilichtmuseum Gro? Raden
Kastanienallee
19406 Gro? Raden

Telephone: 03847 - 2252

The boat and the museum of Slavic life are especially carefully hidden from 10 to 16:30.

http://www.freilichtmuseum-gross-raden.de/index.html

What I admire most is the responsibility and quality with which the German reenactors carried out the work.

Therefore, it is very sad to hear “in my opinion and further: they could not cut granite with a copper saw, they could not drill, polish; they could not split boards with a wedge; ships could not cross the ocean; it was impossible to build a trireme.” If you don’t know about this, then scientists (real ones: archaeologists, historians, cable scientists, paleobotanists, paleozoologists) know everything as much as possible. And their younger brothers, reenactors, make replicas and then use these great inventions of their ancestors to walk along the oceans and rivers, heartily hit each other on the head and get incredible pleasure from being introduced to the greatness of their ancestors. And if you have hands, but they grow from an indecent place, and your head does not know how to control them, there is no place for you among them...

Scientists are hiding everything, everything was invented by reptilians and proto-ukra. Here is another one of the centers where everything is hidden, daily from 9 to 18 hours, at the address: Huk aveny 35, 0287 Oslo.

The Viking Ship Museum (Norwegian: Vikingskipshuset) is located on the Bygdø Peninsula within Oslo. It is part of the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo and houses archaeological finds from Tune, Gokstad (Sandefjord), Oseberg (Tønsberg) and Borre mound cemetery. Operating since 1926.

You are welcome to visit.

http://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/viking-ship-museum/index.html

"Olympia" (Greek: ??????????) is a modern reconstruction of the ancient Greek trireme. The ship belongs to the Hellenic Navy. Olympia is on display in dry dock as a museum ship.

The ship was built in 1985-1987 at a shipyard in Piraeus with funds from the Greek Navy and British philanthropist banker Frank Welsh. Historians John Sinclair Morrison, John F. Coates and Charles Willink acted as scientific consultants during construction.

Sea trials of the trireme were carried out in 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1994. The most informative from a scientific point of view were the tests in 1987, during which the ship's performance characteristics were established. A team of rowers, consisting of 170 volunteers, managed to accelerate the ship to nine knots (17 km/h).

In 1993, Olympia was transported to Great Britain to participate in celebrations marking the 2,500th anniversary of democracy. In 2004, she delivered the Olympic flame to Piraeus.

Since then, Olympia has been in dry dock in the Athens suburb of Faler.

Hellenic Navy Museum (Athens)
Marina Flisvos, P. Faliro 175 19 Athens
Tel.: 210 9852578, Fax: 210 9836539
Information for educational programs: tel.: 219 9888211 (someone’s website is not working, apparently the Greek Navy is in disarray again, search like this, there are a million photos and videos, or look at my previous post about the Fleet of Rome).

When the “alternatively gifted” say that our ancestors COULD NOT build something, and we cannot repeat it, we can. Yes, there is always something to complain about: the cut is a little smaller, the hole is a little larger, the sediment is different from the image from the amphora (!), “I don’t think this happened.” And I always remember Mikhail Yurievich:

Yes, there were people in our time
Not like the current tribe:
The heroes are not you!

The latter type of boats also includes Scandinavian longships - Viking ships. Such ships are now rarely seen on the waters, although they once plied the seas and oceans, not just the coastal waters of Norway, and, according to historians, even reached the shores of America before Columbus's caravels.

"Dragons" from the Norwegian fjords

Translated from Norwegian, the name of the Vikings sounds like “dragon ship”, which is associated with the characteristic frightening decorations in the form of carved sculptures (most often dragons) in the bow of such ships. Another name for drakkars is Langskip, i.e. “long ships”, which is also associated with the peculiarities of shipbuilding of the Scandinavians, who make their wooden ships narrow (up to 2.6 m wide), long (from 35 to 60 m), with a highly raised curved stern and bow. Drakkars were also called the entire flotilla of Scandinavian warships on which the Vikings carried out their raids from the sea into foreign territories.

This is interesting! It was customary to remove the knob in the form of a dragon's head from the bow of a longship when the ship approached friendly lands. The Vikings believed that this way they could avoid the wrath of good spirits. In addition, such “decorations” were present only on combat longships, while similar Viking fishing and trading ships had nothing of the kind.

Drakkars moved across the expanses of water by rowing with oars (on particularly large ships there were up to 30-35 pairs of oars), as well as by the assistance of a fair wind blowing into a rectangular (less often square) sail spread out in the middle of the ship. The sails were made from sheep's wool. One extensive cloth could take up to 2 tons of wool and a couple of years of work to create it, so sails were a very valuable component of longships.

Steering was carried out by a steering oar installed on the starboard side of the vessel. With such “engines”, longships could reach speeds of up to 10-12 knots, which at that time could be equated to fairly high “technical indicators”. Viking boats could navigate both narrow bays and wide expanses of sea. It is known for certain that Scandinavian longships reached the shores of Greenland and, and even the coast of North America (which was later proven more than once by repeating the route on similar replica ships).

This is interesting! In addition to drakkars, the Vikings also had snekkars - “snake ships”, which were smaller in size and capable of speeds of up to 15-20 knots, and knorrs - merchant ships. Knorrs were wider than longships, but at the same time they developed less speed and were not intended for walking in shallow river waters.

Longships with low sides often merged with high waves, which allowed the Vikings to make a sudden landing on the shore, being completely unexpected opponents. It is likely that the name “Vikings,” literally sounding like “people from,” also arose due to ships with terrifying dragon heads suddenly appearing from the coastal bays.

Drakkar - home of the Viking

Drakkars were wooden ships, in the construction of which preference was given to ash, oak and pine. For the manufacture of the keel and frame, trees with natural bends were initially selected. For the side cladding, only oak boards were used, which were overlapped. In addition, the sides of the ship were protected by shields.

This is interesting! It was believed that to build a drakkar it was enough to have only an ax (or several of its varieties), although other tools were often used.

The Scandinavians considered the ship their home. Like a horse for a nomad, a ship for the Vikings was the main treasure for which they did not mind giving their lives in battle with enemies. Even the Scandinavian kings (tribal leaders) were sent on their last journey in longships. Some burial vessels that have survived to this day can be seen in Norway.

The Vikings’ particularly reverent attitude towards their ships is evidenced by the original names of the longships: “Lion of the Waves”, “Sea Serpent”, “Horse of the Wind”, etc., which are known from the ancient Scandinavian sagas. And the seaworthiness of these ships fully justified such poetic names. When, in 1893, a copy of a medieval longship, called the “Viking,” overtook other sailing ships in 27 days, it was clearly proven that few could compete with the Viking ships during their existence for the best seaworthiness.

Ships from the Scandinavian sagas today

Lines from Hetfield’s song “Slowly the longships sail into the distance, you don’t expect to meet them anymore...” they remind you that the era of the Vikings and longships has long sunk into oblivion, but there are enthusiasts who are not indifferent to the historical heritage of the Scandinavians, who are trying to recreate a piece of the past in the present.

For example, the largest modern drakkar, which took almost 5 years to build (or rather, recreate an ancient copy), was created specifically to cross the Atlantic and be able to clearly prove that Viking ships could reach the coast of North America (which was done in the summer this year).

This is interesting! On the Vyborg embankment you can see typical Viking longships with an unusual history.

The ships are not historical, but created at the Petrozavodsk shipyard specifically for the filming of the film “And Trees Grow on Stones” (1984), which took place in this city. The real-life Gokstad ship was taken as a model. The director of the film, Stanislav Rostotsky, after the completion of filming, gave the boat to the residents of the city in gratitude for their help in filming the film. But now you can only admire the new models - created in 2009 at the Vyborg shipyard to replace the blackened “movie” ships.

Many fans of historical reconstructions repeatedly attempt to recreate one or another real-life Scandinavian longship, using the same simple Viking shipbuilding technologies. For example, to recreate one of the most famous longships in history - the 30-meter long "Havhingsten fra Glendalough" - it took about 300 oak trees, 7000 nails, 600 liters of resin (all ships made by the Vikings were impregnated with resin) and 2 km of ropes.

Reconstructions of historical Viking ships are popular among residents of Denmark and, but most often they reconstruct not longships, but snekkars, which do not require large teams to operate.

Although the Vikings went down in history as sea robbers, no worse than the pirates of the Caribbean, it can be said that their shipbuilding traditions served as the basis for the creation of medieval Western Europe, which adopted the successful designs of Scandinavian longships.