By Robert Wernick
A terror to the skin international, Viking longships have been a resource of serious and comprehensible satisfaction to Norsemen. At a time while the vast majority of women and men within the West lived and died inside strolling distance in their birthplaces, and go back and forth was once gradual and unsafe, Vikings looked as if it would skitter over the globe like water birds over a pond, showing after they have been least anticipated, disappearing after they selected. in contrast to the opposite peoples of Europe within the early heart a long time, they understood and mastered the ability of the ocean. the following, during this short-form publication, the tale of ways the Norsemen discovered to construct and sail their longships.
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Extra info for The Vikings: Conquering the Wind and Waves
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But he pulled his shield over his head and vanished beneath the waters. The Long Serpent became Eirik’s booty, along with a share of Norway. Under Eirik, she was for many years a symbol of Viking prowess. Two hundred years later in the thirteenth century, when the chronicler Snorri Sturluson recorded King Olaf’s saga, the Long Serpent’s oaken bones were still visible beside Trondheim Fjord, a reminder of the greatness of the Viking mariner and the boldness of the Viking warrior. com � Robert Wernick All rights reserved.
Once these were in place, the planks would be added, each one placed above the last. But before the process of planking got under way, Thorberg was called back to his farm on urgent personal business. When he returned to the shipbuilding weeks later, he saw that the planking had been completed. To his dismay, he discovered that the journeymen carpenters - awed by the magnificent dragon ship’s size - had planked her with boards so thick that the ship would be much too heavy and clumsy in the water: The whole project would be a disaster.
To keep the instrument level at sea, a sailor was assigned to hold it floating in a bowl of water. The sun shadow board became the heart of Viking daylight latitude sailing, and all directions given to Norse navigators concerned themselves with reckonings to and from pivotal points of geography where latitude sailing could begin. A vessel would sail roughly north or south until it reached a pivotal point, and then it would sail east or west to its destination - or to another pivotal point. The Norsemen were aided immensely by the location of Scandinavia.