Drakkars - wooden Viking ships

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Drakkars - from the Old Norse Drage - "dragon" and Kar - "ship", literally - "dragon ship") - a wooden Viking ship, long and narrow, with a highly curved bow and stern.

Structurally, the Viking drakkar is a developed version of the snekkar (from the Old Norse “snekkar”, where “snekja” means “snake”, and “kar”, respectively, means “ship”). The Snekkar was smaller and more maneuverable than the Drakkar, and in turn was derived from the Knorr (the etymology of the Norse word "knörr" is unclear), a small cargo ship that was distinguished by a low speed of movement (up to 10 knots). Nevertheless, Eric the Red discovered Greenland not at all on a drakkar, but on a knorr.

The dimensions of the drakkar are variable. The average length of such a ship ranged from 10 to 19 meters (respectively, from 35 to 60 feet), although it is believed that ships of greater length could exist. These were universal ships, they were used not only in military operations. Often they were used for trade and transportation of goods, they traveled on them over a longer distance (not only on the high seas, but also along rivers). This is one of the main features of the drakkar ships - the shallow draft made it possible to easily maneuver in shallow water.

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

Drakkar design, its capabilities and symbols

It is believed that the drakkar (you can see the pictures of the reconstruction of the ship below), being a "dragon ship", invariably had on the keel the carved head of the sought-after mythical creature. But this is a delusion. The design of the Viking drakkar really implies a high keel and an equally high stern part with a relatively low side height. However, it was not always the dragon that was placed on the keel, moreover, this element was mobile.

A wooden statue 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 was, the higher was the social position of the ship's captain. At the same time, when the Viking drakkar swam to the native shores or lands of the allies, the "dragon's head" was removed from the keel. The Scandinavians believed that in this way they could frighten "good spirits" and bring troubles to their lands. If the captain longed for peace, the place of the head was taken by a shield turned towards the coast with the inner side, on which a white linen was stuffed (a kind of analogue of the later symbol of the "white flag").

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 one was the oar move. The drakkar was controlled 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 course of up to 12 knots, and in an era when an adequate sailing fleet did not yet exist, this indicator justly inspired respect. At the same time, the drakkar was quite maneuverable, which, combined with a shallow draft, allowed it to easily move along the fjords, hide in gorges and enter even the shallowest rivers.

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

Usually such a ship had 15 to 30 oar pairs. However, the ship of Olaf Tryggvason (the famous Norwegian king), launched in 1000 and named "The Great Serpent", supposedly had as many as three and a half dozen pairs of oars! Moreover, each paddle was up to 6 meters long. On a journey, the Viking drakkar team rarely numbered more than 100 people, in the overwhelming majority of cases - much less. At the same time, each soldier in the team had his own shop, where he could rest and under which he kept personal belongings. But during military campaigns, the size of the drakkar made it possible to accommodate up to 150 fighters without significant loss in maneuver and speed.

The mast was 10-12 meters in height and was removable, that is, if necessary, it was 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 again came into play. Drakkar could come close to the shore and the warriors very quickly went ashore, deploying positions. That is why the raids of the Scandinavians have always been distinguished by lightning speed. At the same time, it is known that there were many models of drakkars 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 drakkars with spectacular shiny tin weather vane, bright 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". In these epic "nicknames" you can see the influence of the traditional Scandinavian poetic device - kenning.

Drakkar typology and drawings, archaeological finds

The classification of the Viking ships is rather arbitrary, since the actual drawings of the drakkars, of course, have not been preserved. However, there is a fairly extensive archeology, for example - the Gokstad ship (also known as the Drakkar from Gokstad). It was found in Vestfold in 1880, in a mound near the Sannefjord. The vessel dates back to the 9th century, and presumably it was this type of Scandinavian vessel that was most often used for funeral rites.

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

It is curious that the drakkar from Gokstad was reconstructed in 1893 (it was named "Viking"). 12 Norwegians built an exact replica of the Gokstad ship and even sailed 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 in fact is an excellent indicator even for traditional ships of the “sailing fleet era”.

In 1904, in the already mentioned Vestfold, near Tønsberg, another Viking drakkar was discovered, 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 a funeral rite. 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 in the range 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 have excellent carvings depicting animals. Based on the internal dimensions of the drakkar and its "decoration" (first of all, it means the presence of 15 barrels, which were often used by the Vikings as duffel chests), it is assumed that there were at least 30 oarsmen on the ship (but large numbers are also quite probable).

The Oseberg ship belongs to the auger class. Shnekkar or simply 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 century. Despite the fact that the ship received critical damage during the 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 old woman) with decorations that speak of their exceptional position in society. Also on the ship were found a traditional-shaped wooden cart and, most surprisingly, the bones of a peacock. Another "uniqueness" of this archaeological artifact lies in the fact that the remains of people on the Oseberg ship were initially associated with the Ynglings (a dynasty of Scandinavian leaders), but later DNA analysis revealed that the skeletons belong to the U7 haplogroup, which corresponds to people from the Middle East, in particular, Iranians.

Another famous Viking drakkar was discovered in Ostfoll (Norway), in the village of Rolvsey near Thun. This find was made by the famous archaeologist of the 19th century, Olaf Ryugev. The "sea dragon" found in 1867 was named the Tyun ship. The ship in Tyun dates back to the turn of the 10th century, around 900. Its cladding is made of overlapping oak planks. The Tyun ship was poorly preserved, but a comprehensive analysis revealed the dimensions of the drakkar: 22 meters long, 4.25 meters wide, while the keel length is 14 meters, and the number of oars could presumably vary from 12 to 19. The main feature of the Tyun ship lies in the fact that the design was based on oak frames (ribs) made of straight, not bent boards.

Drakkar construction technology, sail setting, crew selection

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

For the cladding of the ships of the drakkars (pictures of the drawings are presented below), the so-called clinker laying of boards was used, that is, laying with an overlap (overlapping). The fastening of the boards to the hull of the ship and to each other strongly depended on the terrain where the ship was manufactured and, apparently, local beliefs had a great influence on this process. Most often, the boards in the Viking drakkar lining were fastened with wooden nails, less often with iron, and sometimes they were tied in a special way. Then the finished structure was tarred and caulked, this technology has not changed over the centuries. This method created an "air cushion", which added stability to the ship, while an increase in the speed of movement led to an improvement in the 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 called lanolin) gave the sail cloth excellent moisture protection, and even in heavy rain, such a cloth got wet very slowly. It is interesting to note that this technology for the manufacture of sails for drakkars clearly resembles the modern method of linoleum production. The shape of the sails was universal - either rectangular or square, this ensured controllability and high-quality acceleration in a tailwind.

Icelandic Scandinavians calculated that the average sail for a drakkar ship (photo of reconstructions can be seen below) took 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 daily for 3 years. Not surprisingly, large and high quality sails were literally worth their weight in gold.

As for the selection of the team for the Viking drakkar, the captain (most often it was a kherseer, hevding or a jarl, less often a king) always took with him only the most reliable and proven people, because the sea, as you know, does not forgive mistakes. Each warrior "attached" to his own oar, the bench near which literally became a home for the Viking during the campaign. Under a bench or in a special barrel, he kept his property, slept on a bench, covered with a woolen cloak. On long campaigns, whenever possible, the Viking drakkars always stopped at the coast so that the warriors could spend the night on solid ground.

A camp on the shore was also necessary during large-scale hostilities, when two or three times more soldiers were taken on the ship than usual, and there was not enough space for all. At the same time, the captain of the ship and several of his entourage in a normal situation did not participate in rowing, and the helmsman did not touch the oar. And here it is worth remembering one of the key features of the "sea dragons", which can be considered a textbook. The soldiers put their weapons on the deck, while the shields were hung overboard on special mounts. The drakkar with shields on both sides looked very impressive and really instilled fear in the hearts of enemies with its one look. On the other hand, by the number of shields overboard, it was possible to determine in advance the approximate size of the ship's command.

Modern reconstructions of Drakkars - the experience of centuries

Medieval Scandinavian ships were repeatedly recreated in the 20th century by reenactors from different countries, and in many cases a specific historical analogue was taken as a basis. For example, the famous "Sea Horse of Glendaloo" drakkar is actually a clear replica of the Irish ship "Skuldelev II", which was released in 1042. This vessel was wrecked in Denmark near the Rosklild fjord. The name of the ship is not original, it was named so by archaeologists in honor of the town of Skuldelev, near which the remains of 5 ships were found in 1962.

The dimensions of the Glendaloo Sea Horse are amazing: it is 30 in length, it took 300 trunks of premium oak to build this masterpiece, seven thousand nails and six hundred liters of quality resin were used in the process of assembling the model of the drakkar, as well as 2 kilometers of hemp rope.

Another famous reenactment is called "Harald Fairhair" in honor of the first king of Norway, Harald Fairhair. Built from 2010 to 2015, this ship 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 reconstructed Viking ship freely takes on board up to 130 people; on it the reenactors made a journey across the ocean to the shores of North America. A unique drakkar (photo presented above) regularly travels along the coast of Great Britain, anyone can get into a team of 32 people, but only after careful selection and long preparation.

In 1984, a small drakkar was reconstructed on the basis of the Gokstad ship. It was created by professional shipbuilders at the Petrozavodsk shipyard to take part in the filming of the wonderful film "And trees grow on the stones." In 2009, several Scandinavian ships were created at the Vyborg shipyard, where they are moored to this day, periodically used as original prop for historical films.

So 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 imperceptibly approached the enemy and made it possible to implement the tactics of a quick, stunning attack (the notorious blitzkrieg). It was on the drakkars that the Vikings plowed the Atlantic, on these ships the legendary northern warriors walked along the rivers of Europe, reaching all the way to Sicily! The legendary Viking ship is a true celebration of the engineering genius of a distant era.