ALL AT SEA NOVEMBER 2020
DOUGAL
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Solent based dinghy sailor David Henshall is a well known writer and speaker on topics covering the rich heritage of all aspects of leisure boating.
SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME An East Anglian project to build a Saxon longship is already revealing intriguing information about our ancestors and is proving their sophisticated understanding of ship design.
In the end the nations of northern Europe would come together to defeat the Barbary Pirate menace, and when an Anglo-Dutch fleet shelled Algiers thousands of slaves would finally be released. Image: Everett Collection/Shutterstock
At 90+ft long, each of the dots is a ‘bog iron’ rivet!
The LongShed would not be complete with a picture of King Raedwald to oversee construction. The image is of the helmet, found in the longboat remains at Sutton Hoo. It was in hundreds of pieces but has been painstakingly restored
T
here are many old hulls resting in mud berths all around our coasts, but there can be few as intriguing, or as old, as the ancient logboat found during building work on the upper reaches of the Hamble River in 1888. For a long time, it was thought to date to Roman times, but more recent investigations have shown that the construction is Saxon, probably from the 7th century. This reappraisal of the boat is important, for although the Saxons are such a part of who we are (the ‘AngloSaxons’) there is very little in the way of detailed knowledge about who they were, how they lived and how they reached here from their native lands in North Germany. Their arrival, though, brought a new structure to the still fragmented land mass that would become the UK which, following the departure of the Romans, had become all but depopulated.
LONGSHIP DISCOVERY
Thankfully, some of those gaps in our understanding are now being addressed courtesy of an exciting project that is taking place up on the quay in Woodbridge, Suffolk. This location is important, for just a mile or so across the River Deben is the site known as Sutton Hoo where, in 1939, as a number of hilltop burial mounds were being excavated, one was found to contain the remains of a full sized Saxon longship. It was clearly part of the burial of an important person, probably the Saxon King Raedwald who had died in 624 AD, for there were a number of beautiful ‘grave goods’ placed within the hull, but the bigger surprise was how the hull could have been manhandled to such an elevated spot. Painstaking archaeological research has subsequently revealed much about the shape of the boat and some of the
construction techniques that the Saxons used, but with each revelation the questions just multiplied. How did the Saxons fit out their boats, how were they used and how did they make voyages that were demanding even by the standards of today? These, though, were not the longships made famous on the ocean crossing voyages of the Vikings, but nevertheless the Saxons still had to have the ability to cross the North Sea in significant numbers, establishing themselves strongly around the coasts of East Anglia and along the South Coast.
Along with a smaller model, work progresses in the LongShed in front of a full sized wall plan
When the tools to hand are primitive, you can always get nature to lend a helping hand by coming up with wood already on its way towards the right shape!
A touch of the holly used to refer to the wood used to make a policeman’s truncheon, because the wood from a holly tree is very resistant to splitting, Back in Saxon time, a piece of holly trunk such as this would have been used as a mallet
REBUILD PROJECT
Sutton Hoo gave some hints as to the lives they led, but the real breakthrough would come when the momentous decision was taken to rebuild the longship, using wherever possible the materials and techniques of the day. This was no easy task, for the longship was 90ft long, with beautifully curved ends that arched up, with the finished hull weighing many tons. The first task was to record every detail of the original boat, with teams from both Southampton and York Universities closely involved in turning the remains of a 1,400-year-old hull into plans that would be at the heart of the new build process. A purpose-built workshop, the now famed LongShed, was constructed on the quayside at Woodbridge and a team of helpers, both professional and volunteers, was assembled to turn the plans into a reality.
WOOD MATTERS
First would be the issue of sourcing the materials needed, as throughout the whole project the overriding intention was to keep referencing back to the traditional methods of working wood. One of the surprises is that the majority of the hull will be laid up in unseasoned, green oak, with the hope that ‘windfall’ trees could be utilised. The
A mock-up of the centre section of the boat shows the curved hull sections, but at the same time, the alarmingly low freeboard
demands of a 90ft hull will require some tree felling, but it is an essential part of the project that more trees will be planted than will have been used in the build. Another very important aspect of this part of the project was a focus on the reduction in waste from this ‘precious’ material. As traditional woodworking techniques are being used, it is also important to try to match some of the more complex component shapes required with pieces of wood that are already close to the finished product. Of course, all working results in some waste in the form of wood shavings and sawdust, yet there are environmentally positive uses even for this.
BUILD PROCESS
Sailors used to seeing smaller boats and dinghies being built in wood will immediately recognise the process, where a rigid jig is set up on the workshop floor, then the hog and frames set up, quickly revealing the outline shape of the hull. The longship will be slightly different, as it will start with the massive keel being laid down, then the frames being positioned on to that. This means that the hull will be constructed the ‘right way up’, with the planks being fastened together with some 3,000 ‘bog iron’ rivets. However, the construction of the hull is just the start, for it marks some of the limits of the current knowledge of how the boat was fitted out. One surprise would be that the boat was potentially powered by oars alone, as there is nothing in the way of evidence that the original was equipped with a mast and the attachment points for rigging. Instead, up to 40 oarsmen would have worked to keep the hull moving through the water. For a boat that is already revealing surprises on a regular basis, maybe the biggest is the low profile of the hull. Considering that this was a boat for heading offshore there is not a lot of freeboard midships. A look at the midships sect ions shows a lovely hull form though, one that suggests that the Saxons were far more sophisticated in their understandings of ship design. It would be fantastic at this point to be talking of the hull taking shape, but sadly the project timelines have been hit hard by the Covid pandemic, as now only six people are allowed to be in the workshop at any one time. Hopefully this is a temporary setback and soon it will be rising up from the workshop floor. All at Sea will be closely following not only the construction, but the fitting out, launching and then the sea trials that All images: Andrew Wiseman show just how our forebears reached these
