european explorers

european explorers

THE VIKINGS

Vikings had several kinds of ships according to what they would be used for and what kind of water they would have to sail, but the basic pattern was the same for them all. There were two main types: warships and transport ships.
The bow and the poop were alike, so, in case it was neccesary to go backwards, they only had to row the other way. The keel was the most important part and to make it, they had to choose an oak with the adequate size, because it had to be all in one piece; it was built so it just needed one metre of water to sail and this way they could enter places no-one else could and disembark at any beach. The helm was in the right side of the poop, held by a leather strip.
The great flexibility and strength of the thin planks in viking ships had its origin in the way wood was cut: always with axe and never with saw, following the radial lines in the tree, getting extremely thin planks one over another and riveted with iron nails. This way, ships were light and easy to work, and vikings had the possibility of lifting them and transporting them along the ground; they actually did that when they sailed the Russian rivers up.
Swedish vikings, the ones from Gotland above all, had established Eastern trading routes even before the beginning of the Viking Era, getting to Constantinople, Jerusalem and Bagdad (many 9th century Gotland runestones remember the dead travellers that reached those places); to do so, they sailed up Russian rivers and even dragged their ships along the ground when it was necessary, for instance, when there were rapids or when the river simply ended and they had to find another.
Afterwards, they dominated those lands without difficulties, as Norwegian and Danish vikings preferred going the other way: Norwegians navigated in high sea, getting to Faroer Islands, Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands, Ireland and later to Iceland and from there to Greenland; Danish settled in French land (Normandy) and England...