How fast were viking ships

The most common type of boats was the longships, which were a status symbol and widely regarded as their ultimate weapon. These vessels were elaborately carved and decorated depending on the ship's symbolic value. Their long and narrow shapes made them quick water. This feature, however, meant that they had very limited capacity for cargo and could only accommodate a week's supplies. This, in turn, meant that the Vikings had to increase logistical demands during their expeditions.

But for voyages to England and other faraway places such as Greenland, Iceland, and the Americas, the boats had to be large ocean-going vessels that could carry up to 80 people and a large amount of cargo. The boats were also sturdy and made from planks known as strakes that were held together with iron rivets. As we noted earlier, sails were one of the most advanced technologies of their days. Without the sails, it could have been extremely difficult for the Vikings to explore across the seas as they did.

Sails were invented at the end of the 7th century just before the Vikings began their faraway explorations to areas such as England. In addition to the oars, the sails meant that the Viking boats were more advanced than other vessels in terms of speed, accuracy, maneuverability, capacity, and seaworthiness. The boats were also designed to tolerate fierce storms and travel far and wide. This gave the Vikings the advantage of traveling not only to England but other parts of the world to trade, make war, and explore.

It's important to note that the Vikings were not only excellent boat builders but were also great sailors. However, all these would count for nothing if they couldn't navigate properly. Unlike today, navigation was no mean task for centuries because there were no maps, no charts, no magnetic compasses, or no sextant for celestial navigation that are common today.

If a boat got lost at sea, it would most likely prove fatal. But to navigate, the Vikings had to use other methods.

If they were close to the shores, they'd rely on coastal landmarks. For instance, they relied on how the sun appeared between two specific mountains. The Vikings would rely on signs such as predictable movements of migratory birds.

Such signs, however, had very little with how the Vikings managed to sail during stormy or cloudy days but they did it anyway. So how did they do it? Well, the Vikings island-hopped several times on their way to England to be within sight of well-known landmarks such as weirdly-shaped cliffs. They were also heavily reliant on the initially-noted landmarks such as the sun, clouds, stars, animals, sea mammals, as well as the behavior of winds and waves.

In essence, the Vikings had mastered how the seas would behave at any given moment. This enabled them to choose the right time to make the voyage. More importantly, firsthand experience on the route to England or any other place, for that matter, was of great value to the Vikings. In the Viking Age, the sailing time for any given stretch was quite variable. The voyage from Scandinavia to England would be quickest but this was largely dependent on whether or not the strength of the wind was moderate and favorable.

In most cases, the Vikings would spend many days or even weeks out in the sea if the winds were strong and against them. Such strong winds generally cause high waves and they had to slow down until the sea calmed a little bit before continuing with the voyage. Again, strong winds and foul weather often meant that the Vikings could lose their bearings and couldn't sail towards their targeted destination.

For that reason, the Vikings would stay at a given place for some time waiting for the winds, weather, and the sea to become favorable again. For instance, the Vikings would stay in Fjords for weeks waiting for the winds to become favorable before attempting ocean passing. The longships were usually about 65 feet in length and were completely open to the elements.

In a sense, they were simply overgrown rowboats equipped with sails. The knarrs were smaller, typically about 50 feet in length, and they were used as trading vessels.

Sagastad — the Myklebust ship The Myklebust ship from Nordfjordeid is the largest Viking ship whose remains have been found in Norway. It had an estimated length of 30 metres. Longships could fit up to people who were coming to invade. Longships were different sizes. So if it was a small ship it would be able to carry 10 warriors around.

Longships were made out of oak because it was very strong. There was no shelter on these vessels. At night, Vikings might pull them up on land. To sail to England or northern Britain in particular, it would take The Vikings about 3 to 6 days in good and favorable conditions at an average speed of 8 knots. The ship required 14 large oak trees, each measuring 3 feet in diameter.

As a result, the intent in naval combat was to gain control of the ship and any valuables she might be carrying while minimizing any damage to the ship. This goal was achieved not by attacking the ship, but rather by attaching the ship's crew. The attackers attempted to sweep the decks free of the enemy without damaging the ship or her gear, and thus gain control of the ship.

The sagas tell of battles involving large numbers of ships. Under these conditions, some ships were lashed together, while others were free to move to wherever they were most needed during the course of the battle. An on-line video lecture on Viking naval battles presented by William R. Recently, the accuracy of the descriptions of sea battles in the sagas has been called into question. It has been suggested that these descriptions are a confluence of battle tactics from when the sagas were written 13 th century and when the events took place 10 th and 11 th century.

I remain skeptical of this revisionist suggestion. Some sources suggest large Viking warships were equipped with catapults or other engines to hurl missiles such as rocks during a battle, or against a target on land.

As discussed in more detail in the article on miscellaneous Viking weapons , I am very skeptical of their existence. The shallow draft of Norse war ships had several advantages. The Norse could raid well inland by sailing far up rivers that were too shallow for typical sea-going vessels of the day.

In general, the Norse raided only those locations to which they could sail. Overland marches were avoided. The shallow draft of their ships allowed Vikings to set up impregnable bases deep within enemy territory. Viking ships could land anywhere there was a shelving beach; no harbor was necessary. The excrement washed up on the beach, thus the name. Archaeological evidence supports the view that ships were beached regularly. The Skuldelev ships have wear on their keels consistent with sand and gravel landings.

Other European ships of the time required much deeper waters and were incapable of landing in such places. Norse raiders routinely landed on harborless islands, safe from attack by their enemies who were unable to land.

Any small party of attackers who tried to land in boats would be cut down by the Norse raiders, making the Norsemen invincible on their island. When the Norse "Great Army" invaded the Frankish kingdoms, they routinely set up such bases on islands in rivers such as the Seine. Similarly, Norse raiders landed in England in places where the Anglo-Saxons, with their deeper draft ships, could not reach by sea.

In addition, the shallow draft made for fast and easy disembarkation during a raid. When the ship was beached, a Viking could be certain that if he jumped out near the stem, the water would scarcely be over his knees.

The crew could leave the ship and join the raid quickly and confidently. Under more normal conditions, conventional methods of boarding the ship were used. A gangplank was found on board the Oseberg ship. This ship is a coastal trader and is The loading capacity is approximately 4. A larger ocean-going trader found at Skuldelev was However, she could carry nearly three times the cargo of the coastal trader: With a capacity this large, it is likely that she carried not only luxury goods, but also everyday objects in bulk quantities for trade.

It's estimated that this ship's "effective" speed in regular ocean traffic was on the order of 3 to 6 knots. However, greater speed may have been possible under good conditions. The saga literature suggests that the crossing from Norway to Iceland a distance a bit less than nautical miles was normally accomplished in a fortnight or so, but extraordinary crossings were accomplished in less than a week.

Regardless, merchants typically made only a single one-way trip to Iceland each year, waiting through the winter before making the return voyage.

Some voyages to Iceland took much longer. They were at sea for a month before they made landfall at Vestmannaeyjar, off of Iceland's south coast. Oars were probably only used for maneuvering in preparation for landing. A big open hole amidships comprised the cargo hold. Brushwood mats or straw under the cargo protected the ship from damage from the cargo. A crew of about six manned the coastal trader: a helmsman, a lookout, a bailer, and others sufficient to handle the sail.

Like the warships, the shallow draft of the cargo ships meant that they could easily be run up onto a beach for unloading, which was probably the usual way to land a ship. As the tide ran out, the ship was gently deposited on the bed of the estuary, where the cargo could be easily unloaded. The sand and gravel on the bed of the estuary would have comfortably held the ship's keel, allowing her to have been unloaded with dry feet.

To date, only the towns of Hedeby, Birka, and Kaupang show any evidence of harbors with jetties for docking a ship. The ships themselves give evidence that piers were not routinely used. Many ships have outboard gear, such as cleats and oarlocks, that would have been easily damaged by a pier. Finds of fenders made from withy, which would have protected the outboard gear, suggest that ships may have docked at piers, but finds of broken-off pieces of this outboard gear in Viking-age shipyards suggest that damage occurred regardless, and had to be repaired.

In some towns, small boats may have been used to carry cargo from ships anchored in the harbor to land. The harbor at Hedeby shows evidence of wooden poles in the harbor to which ships could be tied. Wagons may have been driven into the shallow water alongside the ship for unloading. Some harbors show evidence of stones laid from the beach into the water to facilitate driving a wagon into the water. Voyages must have been very difficult for passengers and crew.

The ships were completely open, and everyone was exposed to the elements. People slept wherever they could, probably between the thwarts. Food was probably dried, salted, or smoked meat and fish. Drinks probably consisted of water in skin bags , and ale or sour milk in tubs. It appears that ships and lives were routinely lost during ocean crossings. Smaller cargo ships were used on rivers, notably on Viking trade routes in Russia.

These ships had larger crews perhaps ten men and more oars so as to be able to travel up river. These ships could be portaged if needed. The illustration to the right is from Olaus Magnus' Historia published in Ships were also portaged around rapids on some of these trade routes in Russia.

Large crews were required, not only for the physical labor required to carry the ship overland, but also to guard against attacks from bandits who waited near the portage sites to grab valuable cargo. Ships were built using the "clinker" technique right , in which the lower edge of each hull plank overlaps the upper edge of the one below.

Planks strakes were riveted together using iron rivets. An assortment of rivets and washers are shown to the left, before use. Rivets were typically about 75mm 3 in long. The total weight of rivets and washers used in the construction of a typical ship was about kg lb , a very substantial and expensive amount of iron in the Norse era. Everyone from the ships was dead, and one of the ships was badly damaged. He returned home with the valuables and the undamaged ship, as well as with the bones of the dead men, so they could be buried in the churchyard.

Historical ships used much longer spacing between rivets than the modern reproductions shown in the photos on this page. Modern safety regulations require more closely spaced rivets for strength. Historical ships spaced the rivets as much as 60cm or more 24 inches apart along the strakes, so the ship would be flexible in rough seas, bending and riding over the waves, rather than trying to resist them and taking the full impact of each swell. Thus thin-hulled Viking ships could survive the rough seas of the North Atlantic.

On some ships, the strakes were lashed to the frame using flexible lashings, rather than being firmly fixed, another way to create an elastic structure that rode over the waves. To the right is a sketch of the cross section of the planking of the Gokstad ship, showing how each plank was fastened to the frame. However, on other ships, the strakes were fastened to the frame with wooden trenails wooden dowels held in place by wooden wedges , and in some cases, by iron spikes. The trenails were preferred, since after installation, they swelled and held better than iron.

The structural elements of the Oseberg ship are shown to the left, showing the keel blue , strakes light blue , rib green , crossbrace yellow , knees light red , and stanchion magenta. Where each strake crossed a rib, a cleat was fabricated on the inboard side of the strake that stood proud above the surface of the strake. The rib rested in the cleat, and the lashing that fixed the strake to the rib passed through the cleat. Even though cracks between the planks were sealed with moss or animal hair coated with tar, the elasticity of the ships made them prone to leaks, especially in rough seas.

It's likely that one crew member bailed full time, with others helping when necessary. In chapter 17 of Grettis saga , there's a description of bailing during rough seas.

The crew was forced to bail round the clock. Two buckets were used, with a full one carried up while the empty one was passed back down to be refilled. When Grettir took over filling the buckets, eight men were needed to empty the buckets in order to keep up with him. A sketch of an 11 th century bailer is shown to the right. The bailer is made of wood and is about 50cm 20 in long. There is also evidence of drain plugs in some hulls, to empty the water when the ship was pulled up on shore.

Oak was used throughout the ship. Tall, straight trees were selected for masts and planks. The archaeological evidence shows that the quality of ship timbers declined throughout the Norse era. Later ships were made with planks that were shorter and less broad, because fewer high-quality oak trees were available. Some ships were built with wood salvaged from earlier ships, as evidenced by the Skuldelev 5 ship which has been described as a "coffin ship" because of its poor construction and low level of seaworthiness.

By the end of the Norse age, pine was extensively used. Oak planks were created from logs by riving : making thinner and thinner radial splits in the logs using wedges. The process is shown schematically to the left, and portions of a riven log are shown to the right. From a typical 1m diameter trunk 40 inches , perhaps 20 planks, each about 30cm broad 1 foot could be created.

Compared to modern sawed boards, the radially split planks were stronger, with a smaller likelihood of splitting, warping, or shrinking, since the grain followed the plank. The planking used in the Gokstad ship is only 2. Riving was used to create other wooden objects in the Viking age, and this article details the use of riving to create an axe haft.

Ole Crumlin-Pedersen has estimated that for a typical 20m 65 ft longship, approximately 58 cubic meters cu ft of oak was required. This is equivalent to eleven oak tree trunks, each 1m in diameter and 5m long, along with a single 18m long trunk for the keel. Oaks of this size and of sufficient quality would be difficult or impossible to find today.

The keel of the Gokstad ship required a tall, straight oak about 25m 80ft tall. Pine logs were typically split only once, and the strakes were cut down from the resulting two halves of the log. Trees were sought that grew naturally in the forms needed to make floors, frames, knees, ribs, and other odd shapes left. Since the grain of the wood naturally followed the required shape right , these pieces were much stronger than if they had been cut from straight wood.

A significant portion of the total time to build a ship was spent in the forest, finding trees of the right size, shape, and species for creating the parts of the ship. An illustration from a 18th century shipbuilding encyclopedia shows how the needed shapes were found growing naturally in the trees right. Small models of ship parts have been found in Bergen and other ship-building centers which have been interpreted as models used to select trees in the forest having the right shapes.

Large branches were cut separately before the trunk was felled to avoid the damage to correctly shaped branches that would occur if the tree fell with the branches in place. Long straight trees for planks were found in dense, old growth forests. Curved shapes for the frame were found in trees that grew along the edges of the woods, or in open land with free standing trees. In order to avoid having to transport large pieces of wood from the forest to the shipyard, much of the rough processing took place in the forest, on the site where the wood was cut.

Logs were rough split, probably into eighths, for transport. Curved timbers were rough worked to remove at least a portion of the unneeded volume of wood. Curved timbers were stored underwater to keep the timber green and workable until the piece was fabricated. Due to the lack of suitable forests, it's unclear whether Iceland had a ship-building tradition during the Viking age. When the first settlers arrived, much of the land was forested, with birch predominating.

However, it would seem that the tall, straight trees needed for keels and masts would be in short supply. There are no oaks in that area today left. Ships were built using simple tools. Long shafted axes were used to fell the trees.