Alexander Martin Model Ship Gallery

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Viking Ship: The Long Serpent

The time is some 1200 years ago, and the scene the rune-carved ancestral hall of Varin, on the shores of Varin's Fjord in Norway. Varin is growing old. He is rich in everything but land. His hall is replete with gold, fine fabrics and great treasures of other lands, but his odal is small. Therefore on this day he gives one of his skutas or dragon ships to his son Lief, telling him to go forth and carve fame and fortune for himself. Lief, eager for the world like a mettled stallion, gathers around him seventy of the young men clamorous to follow him in Viking voyages of adventure, discovery, and acquisition - to visit friendly jarls, hostile countries or unknown lands, to return with gold and wives. Lief's ship was a war vessel distinguishable from a merchant craft by her longer lines and ornamentations. She was called variously a skuta, a long ship, a dragon ship, or a long-serpent. Her extreme length was 79 feet, the breadth is 16.5 feet, and the displacement or weight with fittings about 20 tons. She was slim but very sturdy and sea worthy. Her object was with oars and sails to strike swiftly and hard and to withstand the knocks of an enemy or the battering of the fierce northern gales. His ship was not only useful, it was decorative with its carvings and black and gold schemes. The main dimensions used to build this model of the long serpent or war vessel are based on the actual Viking ship which was discovered in 1880 lying in a tumulus (a hill or mound over a grave) at Gokstad, Norway. This ship is preserved at the University of Norway museum at Christiana. Some details of our model are from a merchant ship found at Oseberg and others from the Nydam ship as well as from the Bayeux Tapestry and the Eddic sagas. It will be noted that this ship has a great sheer, by which is meant that it is low amidships and high at the ends. Ships with a big sheer are the driest when the waves are high. These ships are the first known that had to combat really stormy weather because their predecessors of the Mediterranean never encountered anything like the heavy weather of the northern oceans and always ran for port when the weather became threatening.

The story of how the Norsemen learned to use this sheer will probably interest those viewing the model.

It is related that the devil taught a shipbuilder that extra seaworthiness could be obtained by the big sheer but stipulated that he should have every seventh ship that was built. The ship owner prospered but forgot to keep count, with the result that his children and everything went down with the seventh ship. In these ships the rowers had no seats. They evidently stood to row in what is still known as "North Sea fashion". The hull of this ship is very similar to the ship in which another Lief, the son of Eric the Red, discovered America. On the bow the dragon or serpent's head was made as fearsome as possible to frighten the enemy, and had eyes so that the ship could see to keep out of danger as with some Chinese boats to this day. From the plank on which the helmsman stood or the "steerboard side" comes our modern name of "starboard" for the right side of a vessel. The other side was the leerboard or larboard side, meaning the empty side. This word larbaord side was later changed to port side to save confusion. Port is from the Portuguese meaning the open side which was laid next to the quay. The shields along the gunwales were used on the left arm of the men whenever they were in sword-to-sword combat ashore and when onboard the ship they hung the shields along the gunwales to man the oars. The Vikings must have been the hardiest of all seamen in vessels which were not much more than a large open boat and using oars for propulsion when the winds were unfavorable. They crossed the Atlantic many times. The first recorded was Lief Erickson in A.D. 1000.

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