L ongships and Dragonships
By the Viking Answer Lady
There were several types of ships used by the Vikings, and all could be properly termed longship since the nature of their clinker-built construction caused them to have a low, lean line, being much narrower n the beam than ships built by more southerly cultures, and thus appearing quite long for their width. Clinker-built means that these ships were built around a solid, massive keel which extended up both fore and aft to which were affixed planks that were bent to follow the line of the keel. Each row of planks, or strakes, overlapped the one below, and each row was fastened to the previous strake with nails that had been driven first through the overlapped boards, then through a small square metal plate and fastened by being clenched over. To keep water from seeping between the overlapped boards, tarred rope or strips of tarred, felted cowhair were wedged into the cracks as caulking.
P  erhaps the best-known of the longships were the drakkar, the dragon-ships of song and story. These were a fairly late invention (11th century) and were developed by kings such as Olaf Tryggvasson. The primary use of the drakkar was as a warship. It took a national government to afford such a ship: the largest of the dragonships, the Ormen Lange, required 60 rowers!
The drakkar was the largest of the Viking ships, and used for war and battles at sea.
T he most common type of longship was the knorr (pl. knerrir). The knorr was the workhorse of Viking cargo ships, the mainstay of the Icelandic traders.
The best-known example of a knorr is the Gokstad ship. A knorr could carry up to 20 tons of cargo, or a volume equal to 3 tons of vathmal (finely woven homespun wool cloth), or 30 tons of flour-milled grain, or 5 tons of whole-grain barley. A knorr relied mostly upon its sails, having only 4 to 7 pairs of oars and a crew of 15 to 20 men or less. Unlike the dragonships, the knorr couldn't have oarsmen amidships, for the cargo would be in the way. Consequently the knorr used oars only for specialized tasks, such as docking, or keeping the bow into the wind during a storm. All longships used a single square-rigged sail made of vathmal secured with ropes made of seal- or walrus-skin. While the dragon-ship could unstep its mast (take the mast down for safety or storage), the knorr's mast was fixed and could not be removed. This posed some danger in storm conditions, and the Icelandic annals record the loss of often several cargo ships each year. The same annals indicate that the lifetime of the knorr was 20 to 30 years when properly cared for (and when Ran and Aegir - the deities of sea-storms and drowned sailors - didn't claim a ship as their own).
The sailing season was from April to October, and the winter months between were spent performing maintenance on the ship, careening the hull (removing barnacles and treating to prevent boring worm infestation) or replacing the caulking and any rotten or damaged planks. The knorr averaged 44 to 54 ft long, with a 10 to 15 ft beam (width), a draft of 3 to 5 feet empty and 2 feet loaded, and a hold capacity of 350 to 1200 cubic feet.
Another type of cargo ship was the buza (pl. buzur). The buza was originally developed as a warship, having higher gunwales (the sides of the ship) than the average knorr. The higher sides offered improved protection to the rowers. The buza became increasingly popular as a cargo ship because the higher sides also meant greater cargo capacity. The drawback to the buza was that along with the higher sides, the ship had a deeper draft, keeping the buza out of ports with shallow harbors.
The drakkar, knerrir and buzur were all deep-sea ships which could strike out across even the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. The Vikings also had ships designed to stay close to land, sailing only in coastal waters. The most famous of these is the Oseberg ship, thought to be Queen Asa's pleasure yacht. Coastal ships included the byrthing (which, however, was sea-worthy enough to carry loads of cod and herring between Iceland and Norway) and the ferja (literally, "ferry") which might be as long as 40 ft, 8 ft wide in the beam, and with a draft of 3 ft loaded and 1 ft when unloaded.
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