Early Middle Ages

What Was a Viking Longship?

The Viking longship: clinker-built hull, sail and oar propulsion, double-ended design, and why it was the most successful warship of the early Middle Ages.

Question & answer

Short answer

A Viking longship was a long, narrow, shallow-draft warship of the Viking Age, with a clinker-built hull, a single square sail, and a crew of oarsmen. It was designed to be fast, weatherly, and flexible, and could be sailed across the open sea or rowed up narrow rivers. The double-ended hull — the same shape at bow and stern — was one of its most distinctive features. Longships came in several sizes, from the small boats with 13 pairs of oars to the great drekar, or dragon-ships, of the kings. For the broader technological context, see the Viking ships and technology.

Construction

The Viking longship was built in a style called clinker, or lapstrake, construction. In clinker building, the hull is made of overlapping planks, each plank overlapping the one below, with the seams caulked with tarred wool or moss. The planks are held together with iron rivets, driven through holes bored in the wood, with the heads of the rivets on the inside of the hull. The hull is light, flexible, and watertight, and it can bend with the waves of the open sea without leaking.

The frame of the longship was added after the hull was built. The keel, made from a single heavy timber, was laid first, and then the planking was added. Only when the hull was complete were the frames, knees, and deck beams fitted. The Norse method had the advantage of producing a light and flexible hull; the disadvantage was that the finished ship was less rigid than a frame-first vessel.

The wood used in longship construction was carefully chosen. The keel and the garboard strake (the lowest plank on each side) were made from a single oak log, with the natural shape of the timber determining the shape of the bottom of the ship. The upper strakes were of pine, and the mast was usually of pine or spruce. The ship was tarred with wood tar to make the seams watertight.

Rigging and propulsion

The longship was propelled by both sail and oars. The single mast, stepped amidships, was removable and could be lowered in harbor or in heavy weather. The single square sail, made of woolen cloth, was the principal means of propulsion at sea. The sail was a relatively flat sail, and the longship was therefore not particularly close-winded; the Norse sailors made up for this by sailing in all weathers and by hugging the coast when they could.

The oars were the longship’s backup propulsion. A longship might have 13 to 25 pairs of oars, depending on its size, with each oar pulled by a single rower. The oars were made of pine or spruce and were pivoted on wooden tholes, or pins, in the gunwale. When rowing, the longship could maintain a speed of perhaps 8 to 10 knots, and could continue for many hours if the rowers were fit and well-trained.

Design features

The most distinctive feature of the longship was its double-ended hull. The bow and the stern were identical in shape, with the same graceful curve. The vessel could therefore reverse direction without turning, a great advantage in narrow rivers, in sudden attacks on a beach, and in retreats. The hull was also shallow, with a draft of perhaps 1 meter, allowing the longship to land on a beach or to navigate in shallow water. The Viking raider was, in this respect, the forerunner of the modern landing craft.

The longship’s flexibility was another important feature. The clinker-built hull could bend with the waves of the open sea, and a well-found longship could ride out storms that would have swamped a heavier vessel. The compromise between the demands of rowing and sailing, between the need for speed in battle and the need for carrying capacity on long voyages, worked, and the longship became the most successful warship of the early Middle Ages.

Size and types

Longships came in several sizes, each with its own name. The smallest, with 13 pairs of oars, was called a snekkja. Larger longships of 20 to 25 pairs of oars were also called snekkjar. The largest longships, reserved for kings and great earls, were called drekar or “dragon-ships” because of the carved dragon heads that decorated the prow. The greatest of these was the Long Serpent of King Olaf Tryggvason, described in the sagas as 44 meters long, with 34 pairs of oars. Such large ships were rare and were a mix of warship and royal yacht.

The most famous surviving longship is the Skuldelev 2, a small warship raised from a Danish fjord in 1962 and now in the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde. Skuldelev 2 was about 30 meters long, with 25 pairs of oars, and was built in Dublin around 1042. It was scuttled in the Roskilde fjord around 1070, probably to block the channel against an invading fleet. The reconstructed Skuldelev 2 was sailed to Dublin in 2007, a striking demonstration of the seaworthiness of the longship design.

War and trade

The longship was designed primarily for war. Its speed, its flexibility, and its ability to land on a beach made it the perfect vessel for the Viking raiders who attacked the coasts of the British Isles and Francia in the ninth and tenth centuries. The longship’s great advantage over the heavier ships of its opponents was that it could land a force almost anywhere, and could withdraw just as quickly. The Viking raider’s strategy was to make a sudden landing, to pillage the local monastery or village, and to be gone before any organized resistance could be mobilized.

But the longship was also a vessel of trade. Many Viking longships carried cargoes of furs, slaves, and amber down the rivers of Russia to the markets of the Black Sea. The great silver hoards of the Viking Age, found from England to Russia, are evidence of the volume of this trade. The longship was, in other words, both a warship and a merchant ship, and the Vikings used it for both purposes. For the wider context, see the Viking raids and expansion and Viking ships and technology.

Legacy

The Viking longship had a profound influence on European shipbuilding. The Norse design was adopted, with local modifications, by the Normans, and was the basis of the ships that crossed the English Channel in 1066. The clinker-built hull was also adopted by the maritime peoples of the North Sea and the Baltic, and the longship tradition survived, in modified form, until the great age of sail. The maritime vocabulary of modern English, from starboard and larboard to keel and helm, is full of words of Norse origin, a sign of the deep influence of Viking shipbuilding on the language of the sea. For the cultural context in which the longship was used, see the Viking society and culture.